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POEMS OF HOME AND TRAVEL 



BAYARD TAYLOR 




BOSTON 
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 

New York": 11 East Seventeenth Street 



rs 






Copyright, 1855, 
Bt BAYARD TAYLOR. 

Copyright, 1883, 
Bx MARIE TAYLOR. 



ill rights reserved. 



New editions of the " Rhymes of Travel/'" (pub- 
lished in 1849,) and the " Book of Romances, 
Lyrics, and Songs," (published in 1851,) having 
been called for, the author has carefully revised 
both works, rejecting much that did not appear 
worthy of republication, and now offers them again 
to the public, together with a number of new 
poems, written since the appearance of his " Poems 
of the Orient." The two volumes, therefore, con- 
tain all the poetry which he is willing to acknowl- 
edge, up to the present time. He desires a speedy 
forgetfulness for what he has omitted. 

New York, October, 1855. 

(3) 



TO 



GEORGE H. BOKER. 

To you the homage of this book I bring. 

The earliest and the latest flowers I yield, 

And though their hues betray a barren field, 
I know you will not slight the offering. 
You were the mate of my poetic spring ; 

To you its buds of little worth concealed 

More than the summer years have since revealed, 
Or doubtful autumn from the stem shall fling. 

But here they are, the buds, the blossoms blown ; 
If rich or scant, the wreath is at your feet ; 

And though it were the freshest ever grown, 
To you its incense could not be more sweet, 

Since with it goes a love to match your own, 
A heart, dear Friend, that never falsely beat. 

(4) 



CONTENTS. 



ROMANCES AND LYRICS. 

PACE 

Metempsychosis of the, Pine 11 

Hylas, 18 

Kubleii: a Story of t:te Assyrian Desert, . . .25 

Love and Solitude, 32 

Mon-da-Min; or, The Romance of Maize, . . .43 

The Soldier and the Pard, .60 

Ariel in the cloven Pine, 71 

The Harp : an Ode, 76 

Serapion, 80 

" Moan, ye ^vild Winds ! " 85 

Taurus, 87 

The Odalisuue, 91 

Sorrowful Music, 93 

The Tulip-Tree, 95 

Autumnal Vespers, 98 

Ode to Shelley 101 

(•3) 



Sicilian Wine, 104 

Summer's Bacchanal, 109 

Storm-Lines 112 

The Two Visions, 115 

The Life of Earth, 117 

Storm Song, 120 

Song, . 122 

The Waves, 123 

Song, 126 

Cricket Song, 127 

Wordsworth, . 129 

Sonnet. To G. II. B., 130 

CALIFORXIAX BALLADS AND POEMS. 

Manuela 133 

Tiik Fight of Paso del Mar, 138 

The Pine Forest of Monterey, 142 

El Canelo, 147 

The Eagle Hunter, 151 

The Summer Camp 1-54 

Tiik Bison Track 1G2 

RHYMES OF TRAVEL, AXD EARLY POEMS. 

Tin: Tomb or Charlemagne, 109 

The Wayside Dream, 172 

Bteyermark, .170 



To a Bavarian Girl, 178 

In Italy, .......... ISO 

The Statue in the Snow, 182 

The dearest Image, 185 

A Bacchic Ode, 187 

A Funeral Thought, 190 

The Angel of the Soul, 193 

An Hour, 197 

The Norseman's Ride, 201 

The Voice of the Fire, . . . ... . . 204 

A Requiem in the North, 207 

A Voice from Piedmont, 210 

The Continents, ......... 213 

The Mountains, 218 

Life, . - 219 

L'Envoi, 220 

LATER POEMS. 

Wind and Sea 225 

My Dead, 227 

The Lost Crown, 229 

Studies for Pictures : 

I. — At Home, 232 

II. — The Neighbor, 233 

III. — Under the Stars, . . . . . . 235 

IV. — In the Morning, . 237 



8 



Sunken Treasures, 240 

A Fantasy, 243 

The Voyagers, 246 

Memory, 248 

The Mariners, ....*.... 250 



Note, . 253 



ROMANCES AND LYRICS 



(9) 



11 



METEMPSYCHOSIS OF THE PINE. 

As when the haze of some wan moonlight makes 

Familiar fields a land of mystery, 
Where all is changed, and some new presence wakes 
In flower, and bush, and tree, — 

Another life the life of Day o'erwhelms ; 

The Past from present consciousness takes hue, 
And we remember vast and cloudy realms 
Our feet have wandered through : 

So, oft, some moonlight of the mind makes dumb 

The stir of outer thought : wide open seems 
The gate wherethrough strange sympathies have come, 
The secret of our dreams ; 



12 



The source of fine impressions, shooting deep 

Below the failing plummet of the sense ; 
Which strike beyond all Time, and backward sweep 
Through all intelligence. 

We touch the lower life of beast and clod, 

And the long process of the ages see 
From blind old Chaos, ere the breath of God 
Moved it to harmony. 

All outward wisdom yields to that within, 

Whereof nor creed nor canon holds the key ; 
We only feel that we have ever been, 
And evermore shall be. 

And thus I know, by memories unfurled 

In rarer moods, and many a nameless sign, 
That once in Time, and somewhere in the world, 
I was a towering Pine, 

Rooted upon a cape that overhung 

The entrance to a mountain gorge ; whereon 
The wintry shadow of a peak was flung, 
Lone after rise of sun. 



13 



Behind, the silent snows ; and wide below, 

The rounded hills made level, lessening down 
To where a river washed with sluggish flow 
A many-templed town. 

There did I clutch the granite with firm feet, 

There shake my boughs above the roaring gulf, 
When mountain whirlwinds through the passes beat, 
And howled the mountain wolf. 



There did I louder sing than all the floods 

Whirled in white foam adown the precipice, 
And the sharp sleet that stung the naked woods 
Answer with sullen hiss : 



But when the peaceful clouds rose white and high 

On blandest airs that April skies could bring, 
Through all my fibres thrilled the tender sigh, 
The sweet unrest of Spring. 

She, with warm fingers laced in mine, did melt 

In fragrant balsam my reluctant blood ; 
And with a smart of keen delight I felt 
The sap in every bud, 



14 



And tingled through my rough old bark, and fast 

Pushed out the younger green, that smoothed my tones, 
When last year's needles to the wind I cast, 
And shed my scaly cones. 

I held tne eagle till the mountain mist 

Rolled from the azure paths he came to soar, 
And like a hunter, on my gnarled wrist 
The dappled falcon bore. 

Poised o'er the blue abyss, the morning lark 

Sang, wheeling near in rapturous carouse ; 

And hart and hind, soft-pacing through the dark, 

Slept underneath my boughs. 

Down on the pasture-slopes the herdsman lay, 
And for the flock his birchen trumpet blew ; 
There ruddy children tumbled in their play, 
Arid lovers came to woo. 

And once an army, crowned with triumph, came 

Out of the hollow bosom of the gorge, 
With mighty banners in the wind aflame, 
Borne on a glittering surge 



15 



Of tossing spears, a flood that homeward rolled, 

While cymbals timed their steps of victory, 
And horn and clarion from their throats of gold 
Sang with a savage glee. 

I felt the mountain walls below me shake, 

Vibrant with sound, and through my branches poured 
The glorious gust : my song thereto did make 
Magnificent accord. 

Some blind harmonic instinct pierced the rind 

Of that slow life which made me straight and high, 
And I became a harp for every wind, 
A voice for every sky ; 

When fierce autumnal gales began to blow, 

Roaring all day in concert, hoarse and deep ; 
And then made silent with my weight of snow — 
A spectre on the steep ; 

Filled with a whispering gush, like that which flows 

Through organ-stops, when sank the sun's red disk 
Beyond the city, and in blackness rose 
Temple and obelisk ; 



16 



Or breathing soft, as one who sighs in prayer, 
Mysterious sounds of portent and of might, 
What time I felt the wandering waves of air 
Pulsating through the night. 

And thus for centuries my rhythmic chant 

Rolled down the gorge, or surged about the hill : 
Gentle, or stern, or sad, or jubilant, 
At every season's will. 

No longer Memory whispers whence arose 

The doom that tore me from my place of pride : 
Whether the storms that load the peak with snows, 
And start the mountain slide, 

Let fall a fiery bolt to smite my top, 

Upwrenched my roots, and o'er the precipice 
Hurled me, a dangling wreck, erelong to drop 
Into the wild abyss ; 

Or whether hands of men, with scornful strength 
And force from Nature's rugged armory lent, 
Sawed through my heart and rolled my tumbling length 
Sheer down the steep descent. 



17 



All sense departed, with the boughs I wore ; 

And though I moved with mighty gales at strife, 
A mast upon the seas, I sang no more, 
And music was my life. 



Yet still that life awakens, brings again 
Its airy anthems, resonant and long, 
Till Earth and Sky, transfigured, fill my brain 
With rhythmic sweeps of song. 



Thence am I made a poet : thence are sprung 

Those motions of the soul, that sometimes reach 
Beyond all grasp of Art, — for which the tongue 
Is ignorant of speech. 

And if some wild, full-gathered harmony 

Roll its unbroken music through my line, 
There lives and murmurs, faintly though it be, 
The Spirit of the Pine. 
2 



18 



HYLAS. 

Storm-wearied Argo slept upon the water. 
No cloud was seen ; on blue and craggy Ida 
The hot noon lay, and on the plain's enamel ; 
Cool, in his bed, alone, the swift Scamander. 
" Why should I haste ? " said young and rosy Hylas : 
" The seas were rough, and long the way from Colchis. 
Beneath the snow-white awning slumbers Jason, 
Pillowed upon his tame Thessalian panther ; 
The shields are piled, the listless oars suspended 
On the black thwarts, and all the hairy bondsmen 
Doze on the benches. They may wait for water, 
Till I have bathed in mountain-born Scamander." 

So said, unfilleting his purple chlamys, 
And putting down his urn, he stood a moment, 
Breathing the faint, warm odor of the blossoms 
That spangled thick the lovely Dardan meadows. 



19 



Then, stooping lightly, loosened he his buskins, 
And felt with shrinking feet the crispy verdure, 
Naked, save one light robe that from his shoulder 
Hung to his knee, the youthful flush. revealing 
Of warm, white limbs, half-nerved with coming man- 
hood, 
Yet fair and smooth with tenderness of beauty. 
Now to the river's sandy marge advancing, 
He dropped the robe, and raised his head exulting 
In the clear sunshine, that with beam embracing 
Held him against Apollo's glowing bosom. 
For sacred to Latona's son is Beauty, 
Sacred is Youth, the joy of youthful feeling. 
A joy indeed, a living joy, was Hylas, 
Whence Jove-begotten Heracles, the mighty, 
To men though terrible, to him was gentle 
Smoothing his rugged nature into laughter 
When the boy stole his club, or from his shoulders 
Dragged the huge paws of the Nemsean lion. 

The thick, brown locks, tossed backward from his fore- 
head, 
Fell soft about his temples ; manhood's blossom 
Not yet had sprouted on his chin, but freshly 
Curved the fair cheek, and full the red lips' parting, 
Like a loose bow, that just has launched its arrow. 



20 



His large blue eyes, with joy dilate and beamy, 
Were clear as the unshadowed Grecian heaven ; 
Dewy and sleek his dimpled shoulders rounded 
To the white arms and whiter breast between them. 
Downward, the supple lines had less of softness : 
His back was like a god's ; his loins were moulded 
As if some pulse of power began to waken ; 
The springy fulness of his thighs, outswerving, 
Sloped to his knee, and, lightly dropping downward, 
Drew the curved lines that breathe, in rest, of motion. 

He saw his glorious limbs reversely mirrored 
In the still wave, and stretched his foot to press it 
On the smooth sole that answered at the surface : 
Alas ! the shape dissolved in glimmering fragments. 
Then, timidly at first, he dipped, and catching 
Quick breath, with tingling shudder, as the waters 
Swirled round his thighs, and deeper, slowly deeper, 
Till on his breast the River's cheek was pillowed, 
And deeper still, till every shoreward ripple 
Talked in his ear, and like a cygnet's bosom 
His white, round shoulder shed the dripping crystal. 
There, as lie floated, with a rapturous motion, 
The lucid coolness folding close around him, 
The lily-cradling ripples murmured, " Hylas !" 
He shook from off his ears the hyacinthine 



21 



Curls, that nad lain unwet upon the water, 

And still the ripples murmured, " Hylas ! Hylas ! " 

He thought : " The voices are but ear-born music. 

Pan dwells not here, and Echo still is calling 

From some high cliff that tops a Thracian valley : 

So long mine ears, on tumbling Hellespontus, 

Have heard the sea waves hammer Argo's forehead, 

That I misdeem the fluting of this current 

For some lost nymph — " Again the murmur, " Hy 

las ! " 
And with the sound a cold, smooth arm around him 
Slid like a wave, and down the clear, green darkness 
Glimmered on either side a shining bosom, — 
Glimmered, uprising slow; and ever closer 
Wound the cold arms, till, climbing to his shoulders, 
Their cheeks lay nestled, while the purple tangles, 
Their loose hair made, in silken mesh enwound him. 
Their eyes of clear, pale emerald then uplifting, 
They kissed his neck with lips of humid coral, 
And once again there came a murmur, " Hylas ! 
O, come with us ! 0, follow where we wander 
Deep down beneath the green, translucent ceiling, — 
Where on the sandy bed of old Scamander 
With cool white buds we braid our purple tresses, 
Lulled by the bubbling waves around us stealing ! 
Thou fair Greek boy, O, come with us ! O, follow 



22 



Where thou no more shalt hear Propontis riot, 
But by our arms be lapped in endless quiet, 
Within the glimmering caves of Ocean hollow ! 
We have no love ; alone, of all the Immortals, 
We have no love. O, love us, we who press thee 
With faithful arms, though cold, — whose lips caress 

thee, — 
Who hold thy beauty prisoned ! Love us, Hylas ! " 
The sound dissolved in liquid murmurs, calling 
Still as it faded, " Come with us, 0, follow ! " 

The boy grew chill to feel their twining pressure 
Lock round his limbs, and bear him, vainly striving, 
Down from the noonday brightness. " Leave me, Na- 
iads ! 
Leave me ! " he cried ; " the day to me is dearer 
Than all your caves deep-sphered in Ocean's quiet. 
I am but mortal, seek but mortal pleasure : 
I would not change this flexile, warm existence, 
Though swept by storms, and shocked by Jove's dread 

thunder, 
To be a king beneath the dark-green waters." 
Still moaned the humid lips, between their kisses, 
" We have no love. O, love us, we who love thee ! " 
And came in answer, thus, the words of Hylas : 
" My love is mortal. For the Argive maidens 



23 



I keep the kisses which your lips would ravish. 

Unlock your cold white arms, — take from my shoulder 

The tangled swell of your bewildering tresses. 

Let me return : the wind comes down from Ida, 

And soon the galley, stirring from her slumber, 

Will fret to ride where Pelion's twilight shadow 

Falls o'er the towers of Jason's sea-girt city. 

I am not yours, — I cannot braid the lilies 

In your wet hair, nor on your argent bosoms 

Close my drowsed eyes to hear your rippling voices. 

Hateful to me your sweet, cold, crystal being, — 

Your world of watery quiet. Help, Apollo ! 

For I am thine : thy fire, thy beam, thy music, 

Dance in my heart and flood my sense with rapture : 

The joy, the warmth and passion now awaken, 

Promised by thee, but erewhile calmly sleeping. 

O, leave me, Naiads ! loose your chill embraces, 

Or I shall die, for mortal maidens pining." 

But still with unrelenting arms they bound him, 

And still, accordant, flowed their watery voices : 

" We have thee now — we hold thy beauty prisoned , 

O, come with us beneath the emerald waters ! 

We have no love ; we love thee, rosy Hylas. 

O, love us, who shall nevermore release thee : 

Love us, whose milky arms will be thy cradle 

Far down on the undoubted sands of ocean, 



24 






Where now we bear thee, clasped in our embraces." 

And slowly, slowly sank the amorous Naiads ; 

The boy's blue eyes, upturned, looked through the 

water, 
Pleading for help ; but Heaven's immorta. Archer 
Was swathed in cloud. The ripples hid his forehead, 
And last, the thick, bright curls a moment floated, 
So warm and silky that the stream upbore them, 
Closing reluctant, as he sank forever. 

The sunset died behind the crags of Imbros. 
Argo was tugging at her chain ; for freshly 
Blew the swift breeze, and leaped the restless billows. 
The voice of Jason roused the dozing sailors, 
And up the mast was heaved the snowy canvas. 
But mighty Heracles, the Jove-begotten, 
Unmindful stood, beside the cool Scamander, 
Leaning upon his club. A purple chlamys 
Tossed o'er an urn was all that lay before him : 
And when he called, expectant, " Hylas ! Hylas ! " 
The empty echoes made him answer — " Hylas ! " 



25 



KUBLEH : 

A STORY OF THE ASSYRIAN DESERT. 

The black-eyed children of the Desert drove 
Their flocks together at the set of sun. 
The tents were pitched ; the weary camels bent 
Their suppliant necks, and knelt upon the sand ; 
The hunters quartered by the kindled fires 
The wild boars of the Tigris they had slain, 
And all the stir and sound of evening ran 
Throughout the Shammar camp. The dewy air 
Bore its full burden of confused delight 
Across the flowery plain ; and while, afar, 
The snows of Koordish Mountains in the ray 
Flashed roseate amber, Nimroud's ancient mound 
Rose broad and black against the burning West. 
The shadows deepened, and the stars came out, 
Sparkling in violet ether ; one by one 



26 



Glimmered the ruddy camp-fires on the plain, 
And shapes of steed and horseman moved among 
The dusky tents, with shout and jostling cry, 
And neigh and restless prancing. Children ran 
To hold the thongs, while every rider drove 
His quivering spear in the earth, and by his door 
Tethered the horse he loved. In midst of all 
Stood Shammeriyah, whom they dared not touch, — 
The foal of wondrous Kubleh, to the Shekh 
A dearer wealth than all his Georgian girls. 

But when their meal was o'er, — when the red fires 
Blazed brighter, and the dogs no longer bayed, — 
When Shammar hunters with the boys sat down 
To cleanse their bloody knives, came Alimar, 
The poet of the tribe, whose songs of love 
Are sweeter than Bassora's nightingales, — 
Whose songs of war can fire the Arab blood 
Like war itself: who knows not Alimar? 
Then asked the men, " Poet, sing of Kubleh ! " 
And boys laid down the burnished knives and said, 
" Tell us of Kubleh, whom we never saw, — 
Of wondrous Kubleh ! " Closer drew the group, 
With eager eyes, about the flickering fire, 
While Alimar, beneath the Assyrian stars, 
Sang to the listening Arabs : 



27 



" God is great ! 
O Arabs ! never since Mohammed rode 
The sands of Beder, and by Mecca's gate 
That winged steed bestrode, whose mane of fire 
Blazed up the zenith, when, by Allah called, 
He bore the Prophet to the walls of Heaven, 
Was like to Kubleh, Sofuk's wondrous mare : 
Not all the milk-white barbs, whose hoofs dashed 

flame, 
In Bagdad's stables, from the marble floor, — 
Who, swathed in purple housings, pranced in state 
The gay bazaars, by great Al-Raschid backed : 
Not the wild charger of Mongolian breed 
That went o'er half the world with Tamerlane : 
Nor yet those flying coursers, long ago 
From Ormuz brought by swarthy Indian grooms 
To Persia's kings, — the foals of sacred mares. 
Sired by the fiery stallions of the sea ! 

" Who ever told, in all the Desert Land, 
The many deeds of Kubleh ? Who can tell 
Whence came she ? whence her like shall come again 5 
O Arabs ! sweet as tales of Scheherazade 
Heard in the camp, when javelin shafts are tried 
On the hot eve of battle, are the words 
That tell the marvels of her history. 



28 



" Far in the Southern sands, the hunters say, 

Did Sofuk find her, by a lonely palm. 

The well had dried ; her fierce, impatient eye 

Glared red and sunken, and her slight young limbs 

Were lean with thirst. He checked his camel's pace 

And while it knelt, untied the water-skin, 

And when the wild mare drank, she followed him. 

Thence none .but Sofuk might the saddle gird 

Upon her back, or clasp the brazen gear 

About her shining head, that brooked no curb 

From even him ; for she, alike, was royal. 

" Her form was lighter, in its shifting grace, 
Than some impassioned almeh's, when the dance 
Unbinds her scarf, and golden anklets gleam, 
Through floating drapery, on the buoyant air. 
Her light, free head was ever held aloft ; 
Between her slender and transparent ears 
The silken forelock tossed ; her nostril's arch, 
Thin-blown, in proud and pliant beauty spread, 
Snuffing the desert winds. Her glossy neck 
Curved to the shoulder like an eagle's wing, 
And all her matchless lines of flank and limb 
Seemed fashioned from the flying shapes of aii. 
When sounds of warlike preparation rang 
From tent to tent, her keen and restless eye 



29 



Shone blood-red as a ruby, and her neigh 
Rang wild and sharp above the clash of spears. 

" The tribes of Tigris and the Desert knew her : 
Sofuk before the Shammar bands she bore 
To meet the dread Jebours, who waited not 
To bid her welcome ; and the savage Koord, 
Chased from his bold irruption on the plain, 
Has seen her hoof-prints in his mountain snow. 
Lithe as the dark-eyed Syrian gazelle, 
O'er ledge, and chasm, and barren steep amid 
The Sinjar hills, she ran the wild ass down. 
Through many a battle's thickest brunt she stormed, 
Reeking with sweat and dust, and fetlock deep 
In curdling gore. When hot and lurid haze 
Stifled the crimson sun, she swept before 
The whirling sand-spout, till her gusty mane 
Flared in its vortex, while the camels lay 
Groaning and helpless on the fiery waste. 

" The tribes of Taurus and the Caspian knew her : 
The Georgian chiefs have heard her trumpet neigh 
Before the walls of Teflis ; pines that grow 
On ancient Caucasus have harbored her, 
Sleeping by Sofuk in their spicy gloom. 
The surf of Trebizond has bathed her flanks, 



30 



When from the shore she saw the white-sailed bark 
That brought him home from Stamboul. Never yet, 
O Arabs ! never yet was like to Kubleh ! 

" And Sofuk loved her. She was more to him 
Than all his snowy-bosomed odalisques. 
For many years she stood beside his tent, 
The glory of the tribe. 

"At last she died, — 
Died, while the fire was yet in all her limbs, — 
Died for the life of Sofuk, whom she loved. 
The base Jebours — on whom be Allah's curse ! — 
Came on his path, when far from any camp, 
And would have slain him, but that Kubleh sprang 
Against the javelin points, and bore them down, 
And gained the open Desert. Wounded sore, 
She urged her light limbs into maddening speed, 
And made the wind a laggard. On and on 
The red sand slid beneath her, and behind 
Whirled in a swift and cloudy turbulence, 
As when some star of Eblis, downward hurled 
I>y Allah's bolt, sweeps with its burning hair 
The waste of darkness. On and on the bleak, 
Bare ridges rose before her, came, and passed, 
And every flying leap with fresher blood 



31 



Her nostril stained, till Sofuk's brow and breast 
Were flecked with crimson foam. He would have 

turned 
To save his treasure, though himself were lost, 
But Kubleh fiercely snapped the brazen rein. 
At last, when through her spent and quivering frame 
The sharp throes ran, our clustering tents arose, 
And with a neigh, whose shrill excess of joy 
O'ercame its agony, she stopped and fell. 
The Shammar men came round her as she lay, 
And Sofuk raised her head, and held it close 
Against his breast. Her dull and glazing eye 
Met his, and with a shuddering gasp she died. 
Then like a child his bursting grief made way 
In passionate tears, and with him "all the tribe 
Wept for the faithful mare. 

" They dug her grave 
Amid El-Hather's marbles, where she lies 
Buried with ancient kings ; and since that time 
Was never seen, and will not be again, 
O Arabs ! though the world be doomed to live 
As many moons as count the desert sands, 
The like of glorious Kubleh. God is great ! " 



32 



LOVE AND SOLITUDE. 



Earth knew no deeper life since Earth began, 

And scarce the Heaven above : 

For us the world contains no ban ; 

In the profoundest measure given to Man, 

We love, we love ! 

O, in that sound, completion lies 

For all imperfect destinies. 

It is a pulse of joy, that rings 

The marriage-peal of Nature, brings 

The lonely heart, the humblest and the least, 

To share her royal feast ; 

No more an outcast on her sod, 

Or at her board a stinted guest, 

But now in purple raiment dressed, 

And heir to all delight, that she receives of God ! 



33 



ii. 



A balmy breath is breathed upon the land, 
And through the spirit's inmost cells 
It floats and swells, 

Till at the touch of its persuading hand 
The jealous bolts give way, and every door 
Stands wide forevermore. 
Not only there, dear love, not only there 
Where Love's warm chambers front the morning air, 
Thy soul may walk, and in the secret bower 
Where burns the holiest fire that Heaven lets fall, 
And with Ambition, in his blazoned hall, 
Hope, in her airy tower ! 
The heart has other guests than these, 
More secret halls, more solemn mysteries. 
Dark crypts, beheld of none, 
Throne darker powers, that flee the sun, 
Chained far below, and heard at intervals 
When all is still, and through the trembling walls 
Some guilty whisper calls ; 
Or, when the storms have blown, 
And the house rocks upon its basement stone, 
They wring their chains with clamor that appals 
The pale-cheeked lord. To thee 
3 



34 



Those awful crypts and corridors are free. 

Thou through the darkened hush mayst glide, 

White and serene, with unafYrighted breath, 

Past the blind Sins, that slumber leaden-eyed 

In caves that lead to Death. 

Nor I the less, where purer powers control 

The perfect temple of thy soul, 

And saintly harmonies to me 

Breathe from its gates unceasingly, 

Its bowery courts and chambers that infold 

The chastened gleam of pearl and gold, 

Free to the sun and blessed air : 

No deeper gloom than starry twilight there ! 



in. 



What is the world of men to us ? We love, 
And Love hath his own world. Love hath 
Repose in storms and peace in wrath, 
Far from the shocks of Time a quiet path, 
Another Earth below, another Heaven above. 
Men from their weakness and their sin create 
The iron bonds of State, 
Soldered with wrongs of olden date, — 
The heartless frame, the chance-directed law 



35 



Which grows to them a grand, avenging Fate, 

And fills their darkness with its awe. 

States have no soul. The World's tired brain 

O'er many riddles broods with pain, 

Not hopeless all, but hoping much in vain. 

Those who have never loved may stay, 

And in his files fight out the day ; 

But aliens we, who breathe a separate air 

In regions far away ! 

Thou art my law, I thine : the links we we? *, 

If not of Freedom, dearer still, 

And binding both in one harmonious will. 

Why should we track the labyrinth of ill 

Before us, — mingle with the fret 

Of jangling natures, till our souls forget 

Their crystal orbits of accordant sound ? 

Why should we walk the common ground, 

Where gloom is born of gloom, and pain 

From pain unfoldeth ever, 

When to the blue air's limitless domain, 

Made ours by right of love, we rise without endeavor ? 



IV. 



Some voice of wind or sea 

May reach the imbruted slave, and in his ear 



36 



Drop Freedom's mighty secret : so to me 

Through blindness and through passion came the clear 

Calm voice of Love, thenceforth to be 

The revelation of diviner truth 

Than ever touched our sinless youth, — 

A power to bid us face Eternity ! 

But the same whisper that reveals the glory 

Of Freedom's brow, makes also known 

The bitterness of bondage. We 

Will leave this splendid misery, 

This hollow joy, whose laugh but hides a groan, 

And teach our lives to write a perfect story. 



v. 



O, somewhere, in the living realms that lie 

Between the icy zones of desolation, 

Covered by some remote, unconscious sky, 

Where God's serene creation 

Yet never glassed itself in human eye, 

Must be a glorious Valley, hidden 

In the safe bosom of the hills that part 

The river-veins of some old Continent's heart, 

To love like ours a shelter unforbidden ! 

Some Valley must there be, , 

Whereto wide wastes of desert sand have kept 



37 



The gateway secret, mountain walls 

Across the explorer's pathway stepped, 

Or mighty woods surrounded like a sea. 

Love's voice, unto the chosen ones he calls, 

Alike the compass to his freedom is, 

And to that Vale, the lodestar of our bliss, 

Our hearts shall guide us. Even now 

I see the close defiles unfold 

Upon a sloping mead that lies below 

A mountain black with pines, 

O'er which the barren ridges heave their lines, 

And high beyond, the snowy ranges old ! 

Fed by the plenteous mountain rain, 

Southward, a blue lake sparkles, whence outflows 

A rivulet's silver vein, 

Awhile meandering in fair repose, 

Then caught by riven cliffs that guard our home, 

And flung upon the outer world in foam ! 

The sky above that still retreat, 

Through all the year serene and sweet, 

Drops dew that finds the daisy's heart, 

And keeps the violet's tender lids apart : 

All winds that whistle drearily 

Around the naked granite, die 

With many a long, melodious sigh 

Among the pines ; and if a tempest seek 



38 



The summits cold and bleak, 

He does but shift the snow from shining peak to peak 



VI 



Or should this Valley seem 

Too deeply buried from the golden sun, 

Still may a home be won 

Whose breast lies open to his every beam. 

Some Island, on the purple plain 

Of Polynesian main, 

Where never yet the adventurer's prore 

Lay rocking near its coral shore : 

A tropic mystery, which the enamoured Deep 

Folds, as a beauty in a charmed sleep. 

There lofty palms, of some imperial line, 

That never bled their nimble wine, 

Crowd all the hills, and out the headlands go 

To watch on distant reefs the lazy brine 

Turning its fringe of snow. 

There, when the sun stands high 

Upon the burning summit of the sky, 

All shadows wither : Light alone 

Is in the world : and, pregnant grown 

With teeming life, the trembling island-earth 



39 



And panting sea forebode sweet pains of birth 
Which never come, — their love brings never forth 
The Human Soul they lack alone ! 



VII. 



We to that Island soul and voice will be, 

When (rapturous hour !) the baffling quest is over, 

The boat is wrecked, the ship is blown to sea, 

And underneath the palm-tree's cover 

We bless our God that He hath left us free. 

Then, wandering through the inland dells 

Where sun and dew have built their gorgeous bowers, 

The golden, blue, and crimson flowers 

Will drain in joy their spicy wells, 

The lily toll her alabaster bells, 

And some fine influence, unknown and sweet, 

Precede our happy feet 

Around the Isle, till all the life that dwells 

In leaf and stem shall feel it, and awake, 

And even the pearly-bosomed shells, 

Wet with the foamy kiss of lingering swells, 

Shall rosier beauty at our coming take, 

For Love's dear sake ! 

There when, like Aphrodite, Morn 

From the ecstatic waves is born, 



40 



The chieftain Palm, that tops each mountain-cresi> 

Shall feel her glory gild his scaly greaves, 

And lift his glittering leaves 

Like arms outspread, to take her to his breast. 

Then shall we watch her slowly bend, and fold 

The Island in her arms of gold, 

Breathing away the heavy balms which crept 

All night around the bowers, and lifting up 

Each flower's enamelled cup, 

To drink the sweetness gathered while it slept. 

Yet on our souls a joy more tender 

Shall gently sink, when sunset makes the sky 

One burning sheet of opalescent splendor, 

And on the deep dissolving rainbows lie. 

No whisper shall disturb 

That alchemy superb, 

Whereto our beings every sense surrender. 9 

O, long and sweet, while sitting side by side, 

Looking across the western sea, 

That dream of Death, that morn of Heaven, shall be 

And when the shadows hide 

Each dying flush, upon the quiet tide, — 

Quiet as is our love, — 

We first shall see the stars come out above, 

And after them, the slanting beams that run, 

Based on the sea, far up the shining track 






41 



Of the emblazoned Zodiac, 

A pyramid of light, above the buried sun ! 



VIII. 

There shall our lives to such accordance grow 

As love alone can know ; 

Can never know but there : 

Each within each involved, like Light and Air, 

In endless marriage. Earth will fill 

Her bounteous lap with all we ask of Earth, 

Nor ever drought or dearth 

Shrink the rich pulps of vale and hill. 

Content at last the missing tone to hear 

Through all her summer-chords, 

Which makes their full-strung harmony complete 

In her delighted ear, 

She to our hearts that concord shall repeat. 

Led by the strain, it may be ours to enter 

The secret chamber where she works alone 

With Color, Form, and Tone, 

In human mood, or, sterner grown, 

Takes hold on powers that shake her fiery centre. 

Year after year the Island shall become 

A fairer and serener home, 



42 



And happy children, beautiful as Dawn, 

The future parents of a race 

Whose purer eyes shall face to face 

Look on the Angels, fill our place, 

And be the Presence and the Soul, when we have gone 



IX. 



Forgive the dream. Love owns no human birth, 

And may not find fulfilment here 

On this degenerate Earth. 

Forgive the dream : here never yet was given 

More than the promise and the hope of Heaven. 

The dearest joy is dashed with fear, 

Our darkest sorrow may be then most near. 

Even with the will our passion lends 

We cannot break the chain ; 

Against our vows, we must remain 

With common men, and compass common ends. 

We cannot shut our hearts from haunting fears ; 

We cannot purge our eyes from heavy tears ; 

We cannot shift the burden and the woe 

Which all alike must know, 

Which Love's Elected through the countless years 

Have known, and, knowing, died : God wills it so. 



43 



MON-DA-MIN; 

OR, THE ROMANCE OF MAIZE. 



Long ere the shores of green America 

"Were touched by men of Norse and Saxon blood, 

What time the Continent in silence lay, 

A solemn world of forest and of flood, 

Where Nature wantoned wild in zones immense, 

Unconscious of her own magnificence ; 

II. 

Then to the savage race, who knew no world 

Beyond the hunter's lodge, the council-fire, 

The clouds of grosser sense were sometimes furled 

And spirits came to answer their desire, — 

The spirits of the race, grotesque and shy ; 

Exaggerated powers of earth and sky. 



44 



in. 



For Gods resemble whom they govern : they, 
The fathers of the soil, may not outgrow 
The children's vision. In that earlier day, 
They stooped the race familiarly to know ; 
From Heaven's blue prairies they descended then, 
And took the shapes and shared the lives of men. 



IV. 

A chief there was, who in the frequent stress 
Of want, yet in contentment, lived his days ; 
His lodge was built within the wilderness 
Of Huron, clasping those transparent bays, 
Those deeps of unimagined crystal, where 
The bark canoe seems hun^ in middle air. 



v. 

There, from the lake and from the uncertain chase 
With patient heart his sustenance he drew ; 
And no was glad to see, in that wild place, 
The sons and daughters that around him grew, 
Although more scant they made his scanty store, 
And in the winter moons his need was sore. 



45 



VI. 



The eldest was a boy, a silent lad, 
Who wore a look of wisdom from his birth ; 
Such beauty, both of form and face, he had, 
As until then was never known on earth : 
And so he was (his soul so bright and far !) 
Osseo named, — Son of the Evening Star. 

VIL 

This boy by nature was companionless : 
His soul drew nurture only when it sucked 
The savage dugs of Fable ; he could guess 
The knowledge other minds but slowly plucked 
From out the heart of things ; to him, as well 
As to his Gods, all things were possible. 

VIII. 

The heroes of that shapeless faith of his 

Took life from him : when gusts of powdery snow 

Whirled round the lodge, he saw Paup-puckewiss 

Floundering amid the drifts, and he would go 

Climbing the hills, while sunset faded wan, 

To seek the feathers of the Rosy Swan. 



46 



IX. 






He knew the lord of serpent and of beast, 

The crafty Incarnation of the North ; 

He knew, when airs grew warm and buds increased, 

The sky was pierced, the Summer issued forth, 

And when a cloud concealed some mountain's crest, 

The Bird of Thunder brooded on his nest. 



x. 

Through Huron's mists he saw the enchanted boat 

Of old Mishosha to his island go, 

And oft he watched, if on the waves might float, 

As once, the Fiery Plume of Wassamo ; 

And when the moonrise flooded coast and bay, 

He climbed the headland, stretching far away ; 



XI. 

For there — so ran the legend — nightly came 
The small Puck-wudjees, ignorant of harm : 
The friends of Man, in many a sportive game 
The nimble elves consoled them for the charm 
Which kept them exiled from their homes afar, 
The silver lodges of a twilight star. 






47 



XII. 



So grew Osseo, as a lonely pine, 

That knows the secret of the wandering breeze, 

And ever sings its canticles divine, 

Uncomprehended by the other trees : 

And now the time drew nigh, when he began 

The solemn fast whose issue proves the man. 



XIII. 

His father built a lodge the wood within, 
Where he the appointed space should duly bide, 
Till such propitious time as he had been 
By faith prepared, by fasting purified, 
And in mysterious dreams allowed to see 
What God the guardian of his life would be. 



XIV. 

The anxious crisis of the Spring was past, 
And warmth was master o'er the lingering cold. 
The alder's catkins dropped ; the maple cast 
His crimson bloom, the willow's downy gold 
Blew wide, and softer than a squirrel's ear 
The white-oak's foxy leaves began appear. 



48 



xv. 



There was a motion in the soil. A sound 
Lighter than falling seeds, shook out of flowers, 
Exhaled where dead leaves, sodden on the ground, 
Repressed the eager grass ; and there for hours 
Osseo lay, and vainly strove to bring 
Into his mind the miracle of Spring. 



XVI. 

The wood-birds knew it, and their voices rang 
Around his lodge ; with many a dart and whir 
Of saucy joy, the shrewish catbird sang 
Full-throated, and he heard the kingfisher, 
Who from his God escaped with rumpled crest, 
And the white medal hanging on his breast. 

XVII. 

The aquilegia sprinkled on the rocks 

A scarlet rain ; the yellow violet 

Sat in the chariot of its leaves ; the phlox 

Held spikes of purple flame in meadows wet, 

And all the streams with vernal-scented reed 

Were fringed, and streaky bells of miskodeed. 






49 



XVIII. 



The boy went musing : What are these, that burst 
The sod and grow, without the aid of man ? 
What father brought them food ? what mother nursed 
Them in her earthy lodge, till Spring began ? 
They cannot speak ; they move but with the air ; 
Yet souls of evil or of good they bear. 

XIX. 

How are they made, that some with wholesome juice 
Delight the tongue, and some are charged with death ? 
If spirits them inhabit, they can loose 
Their shape sometimes, and talk with human breath . 
Wauld that in dreams one such would come to me, 
And thence my teacher and my guardian be ! 

xx. 

So, when more languid with his fast, the boy 
Kept to his lodge, he pondered much thereon, 
And other memories gave his mind employ ; 
Memories of winters when the moose were gone,- — 
When tales of Manabozo failed to melt 
The hunger-pang his pining brothers felt. 
4 



50 



XXI. 






He thought : The Mighty Spirit knows all things, 
Is master over all. Could He not choose 
Design his children food to ease the stings 
Of hunger, when the lake and wood refuse ? 
If He will bless me with the knowledge, I 
Will for my brothers fast until I die. 

XXII. 

Four days were sped since he had tasted meat ; 
Too faint he was to wander any more, 
When from the open sky, that, blue and sweet, 
Looked in upon him through the lodge's door, 
With quiet gladness he beheld a fair 
Celestial Shape descending through the air, 

XXIII. 

He fell serenely, as a winged seed 
Detached in summer from the maple bough ; 
His glittering clothes unruffled by the speed, 
The tufted plumes unshaken on his brow : 
Bright, wonderful, he came without a sound, 
And like a burst of sunshine struck the ground. 



51 



XXIV. 



So light he stood, so tall and straight of limb, 
So fair the heavenly freshness of his face, 
With beating heart Osseo looked at him, 
For now a God had visited the place. 
More brave a God his dreams had never seen : 
The stranger's garments were a shining green, 

xxv. 

Sheathing his limbs in many a stately fold, 
That, parting on his breast, allowed the eye 
To note beneath, his vest of scaly gold, 
Whereon the drops of slaughter, scarcely dry, 
Disclosed their blushing stain : his shoulders fair 
Gave to the wind long tufts of silky hair. 

XXVI. 

The plumy crest, that high and beautiful 
Above his head its branching tassels hung, 
Shook down a golden dust, while, fixing full 
His eyes upon the boy, .he loosed his tongue. 
Deep in his soul Oss^o did rejoice 
To hear the reedy music of his voice : 



52 



XXVII. 

" By the Great Spirit I am hither sent 
He knows the wishes whereupon you feed,— 
The soul, that, on your brothers' good intent, 
Would sink ambition to relieve their need : 
This thing is grateful to the Master's eye, 
Nor will His wisdom what you seek deny. 

XXVIII. 

" But blessings are not free ; they do not fall 
In listless hands ; by toil the soul must prove 
Its steadfast purpose master over all, 
Before their wings in pomp of coming move , 
Here, wrestling with me, must you overcome, 
In me, the secret, — else, my lips are dumb." 

XXIX. 

No match for his, Osseo's limbs appeared, 
Weak with the fast ; and yet in soul he grew 
Composed and resolute, by accents cheered, 
That spake in light what he but darkly knew. 
He rose, unto the issue nerved ; ho sent 
Into his arms the hope of the event. 



53 



XXX. 



The shining stranger wrestled long and hard, 
When, disengaging weary limbs, he said : 
" It is enough ; with no unkind regard 
The Master's eye your toil hath visited. 
He bids me cease ; to-day let strife remain ; 



XXXI. 

And on the morrow came he as before, 
Dropping serenely down the deep-blue air : 
More weak and languid was the boy, yet more 
Courageous he, that crowning test to bear. 
His soul so wrought in every fainting limb, 
It seemed the cruel fast had strengthened him. 



XXXII. 

Again they grappled, and their sinews wrung 

In desperate emulation ; and again 

Came words of comfort from the stranger's tongue 

When they had ceased. He scaled the heavenly plain, 

His tall, bright stature lessening as he rose, 

Till lost amid the infinite repose. 



54 



XXXIII. 



On the third day descending as before, 

His raiment's gleam surprised the silent sky • 

And weaker still the poor boy felt, yet more 

Courageous he, and resolute to die, 

So he might first the promised good embrace, 

And leave a blessing unto all his race. 

xxxiv. 

This time with intertwining limbs they strove ; 
The God's green mantle shook in every fold, 
And o'er Osseo's heated forehead drove 
His silky hair, his tassel's dusty gold, 
Till, spent and breathless, he at last forbore, 
And sat to rest beside the lodge's door. 

XXXV. 

" My friend," he said, " the issue now is plain ; 
Who wrestles in his soul must victor be ; 
Who bids his life in payment shall attain 
The end he seeks — and you will vanquish me. 
Then, these commands fulfilling, you shall win 
What the Great Spirit gives in Mon-da-Min. 



55 



XXXVI. 



" When I am dead, strip off this green array, 
And pluck the tassels from my shrivelled hair; 
Then bury me where summer rains shall play 
Above my breast, and sunshine linger there. 
Remove the matted sod ; for I would have 
The earth lie lightly, softly on my grave. 

XXXVII. 

" And tend the place, lest any noxious weed 
Through the sweet soil should strike its bitter root ; 
Nor let the blossoms of the forest breed, 
Nor the wild grass in green luxuriance shoot ; 
But when the earth is dry and blistered, fold 
Thereon the fresh and dainty-smelling mould. 

XXXVIII. 

" The clamoring crow, the blackbird swarms that make 
The meadow trees their hive, must come not near ; 
Scare thence all hurtful things ; nor quite forsake 
Your careful watch until the woods appear 
With crimson blotches deeply dashed and crossed, — - 
Sign of the fatal pestilence of Frost. 



56 



XXXIX. 

" This done, the secret, into knowledge grown, 
Is yours forevermore." With that, he took 
The yielding air. Osseo, left alone, 
Followed his flight with hope-enraptured look. 
The pains of hunger fled ; a happy flame 
Danced in his heart until the trial came. 



XL. 

It happened so, as Mon-da-Min foretold : 
Osseo's soul, at every wreathing twist 
Of palpitating muscle, grew more bold, 
And from the limbs of his antagonist 
Celestial vigor to his own he drew, 
Till with one mighty heave he overthrew. 

XLI. 

Then from the body, beautiful and cold, 

He stripped the shining clothes ; but on his breast 

He left the vest, engrained with blushing gold, 

And covered him in decent burial-rest. 

At sunset to his father's lodge he passed, 

And soothed with meat the anguish of his fast. 



57 



XLII. 



Nought did he speak of all that he had done, 
But day by day in secrecy he sought 
An opening in the forest, where the sun 
Warmed the new grave : so tenderly he wrought, 
So lightly heaped the mould, so carefully 
Kept all the place from choking herbage free, 

XLIII. 

That in a little while a folded plume 

Pushed timidly the covering soil aside, 

And, fed by fattening rains, took broader room, 

Until it grew a stalk, and rustled wide 

Its leafy garments, lifting in the air 

Its tasselled top, and knots of silky hair. 

XLIV. 

Osseo marvelled to behold his friend 

[n this fair plant ; the secret of the Spring 

Was his at length ; and till the Summer's end 

He guarded him from every harmful thing. 

He scared the cloud of blackbirds, wheeling low , 

His arrow pierced the reconnoitring crow. 



58 



XLV. 



Now came the brilliant mornings, kindling all 

The woody hills with pinnacles of fire ; 

The gum's ensanguined leaves began to fall, 

The buckeye blazed in prodigal attire, 

And frosty vapors left the lake at night 

To string the prairie grass with spangles white. 

XLVI. 

One day, from long and unsuccessful chase 
The chief returned. Osseo through the wood 
In silence led him to the guarded place, 
Where now the plant in golden ripeness stood. 
" Behold, my father ! " he exclaimed, " our friend, 
Whom the Great Spirit unto me did send. 

XLVII. 

" Then, when I fasted, and my prayer He knew, 
That He would save my brothers from their want ; 
For this, His messenger I overthrew, 
And from his grave was born this glorious plant. 
'Tis Mon-da-Min : his sheathing husks enclose 
Food for my brothers in the time of snows. 



59 



XLVIII. 



" I leave you now, my father ! Here befits 
Me longer not to dwell. My pathway lies 
To where the West Wind on the mountain sits, 
And the Red Swan beyond the sunset flies : 
There may superior wisdom be in store." 
And so he went, and he returned no more. 

XLIX. 

But Mon-da-Min remained, and still remains ; 
His children cover all the boundless land, 
And the warm sun and frequent mellow rains 
Shape the tall stalks and make the leaves expand. 
A mighty army they have grown : he drills 
Their green battalions on the summer hills. 

L. 

And when the silky hair hangs crisp and dead, 
Then leave their rustling ranks the tasselled peers, 
In broad encampment pitch their tents instead, 
And garner up the ripe autumnal ears : 
The annual storehouse of a nation's need, 
From whose abundance all the world may feed. 



60 



THE SOLDIER AND THE PAED. 

A second deluge ! Well, — no matter : here, 

At least, is better shelter than the lean, 

Sharp-elbowed oaks — a dismal company ! 

That stood around us in the mountain road 

When that cursed axle broke : a roof of thatch, 

A fire of withered boughs, and best of all, 

This ruddy wine of Languedoc, that warms 

One through and through, from heart to finger-ends. 

No better quarters for a stormy night 

A soldier, like myself, could ask ; and since 

The rough Ccvennes refuse to let us forth, 

Why, fellow-travellers, if so you will, 

I'll tell the story cut so rudely short 

When both fure-wheels broke from the diligence, 

Stocked in the rut, and pitched us all together : 



61 



I said, we fought beside the Pyramids ; 
And somehow, from the glow of this good wine, 
And from the gloomy rain, that shuts one in 
With his own self, — a sorry mate sometimes ! — 
The scene comes back like life. As then, I feel 
The sun, and breathe the hot Egyptian air, 
Hear Kleber, see the sabre of Dessaix 
Flash at the column's front, and in the midst 
Napoleon, upon his Barbary horse, 
Calm, swarthy-browed, and wiser than the Sphinx 
Whose granite lips guard Egypt's mystery. 
Ha ! what a rout ! our cannon bellowed round 
The Pyramids : the Mamelukes closed in, 
And hand to hand like devils did we fight, 
Rolled towards Sakkara in the smoke and sand. 

For days we followed up the Nile. We pitched 

Our tents in Memphis, pitched them on the site 

Of Antinoe, and beside the cliffs 

Of Aboufayda. Then we came anon 

On Kenneh, ere the sorely-frightened Bey 

Had time to pack his harem : nay, we took 

His camels, not his wives : and so, from day 

To day, past wrecks of temples half submerged 

In sandy inundation, till we saw 

Old noseless Memnon sitting on the plain 



62 



Both hands upon his knees, and in the east 

Karnak's propylon and its pillared court. 

The sphinxes wondered — such as had' a face — 

To see us stumbling down their avenues ; 

But we kept silent. One may whistle round 

Your Roman temples here at Nismes, or dance 

Upon the Pont du Gard ; — but, take my word, 

Egyptian ruins are a serious thing : 

You would not dare let fly a joke beside 

The maimed colossi, though your very feet 

Might catch between some mummied Pharaoh's ribs, 

Dessaix was bent on chasing Mamelukes, 

And so we rummaged tomb and catacomb, 

Clambered the hills and watched the Desert's rim 

For sight of horse. One day my company 

(I was but ensign then) found far within 

The sands, a two-days' journey from the Nile, 

A round oasis, like a jewel set. 

It was a grove of date-trees, clustering close 

About a tiny spring, whose overflow 

Trickled beyond their shade a little space, 

And the insatiate Desert licked it up. 

The fiery ride, the glare of afternoon 

Had burned our faces, so we stopped to feel 

The coolness and the shadow, like a bath 



63 



Of pure ambrosial lymph, receive our limbs 
And sweeten every sense. Drowsed by the soft, 
Delicious greenness and repose, I crept 
Into a balmy nest of yielding shrubs, 
And floated off to slumber on a cloud 
Of rapturous sensation. 

When I woke, 
So deep had been the oblivion of that sleep, 
That Adam, when he woke in Paradise, 
Was not more blank of knowledge ; he had felt 
As heedlessly, the silence and the shade ; 
As ignorantly had raised his eyes and seen — 
As, for a moment, I — what then I saw 
With terror, freezing limb and voice like death, 
When the slow sense, supplying one lost link, 
Ran with electric fleetness through the chain 
And showed me what I was, — no miracle, 
But lost and left alone amid the waste, 
Fronting a deadly Pard, that kept great eyes 
Fixed steadily on mine. I could not move : 
My heart beat slow and hard : I sat and gazed, 
Without a wink, upon those jasper orbs, 
Noting the while, with horrible detail 
Whereto my fascinated sight was bound, 
Their tawny brilliance, and the spotted fell 



64 



That wrinkled round them, smoothly sloping back 
And curving to the short and tufted ears. 
I felt — and with a sort of fearful joy — 
The beauty of the creature : 'twas a pard, 
Not such as one of those they show you caged 
In Paris, — lean and scurvy beasts enough ! 
No : but a desert pard, superb and proud, 
That would have died behind the cruel bars. 

I think the creature had not looked on man, 
For, as my brain grew cooler, 1 could see 
Small sign of fierceness in her eyes, but chief, 
Surprise and wonder. More and more entranced, 
Her savage beauty warmed away the chill 
Of deathlike terror at my heart : I stared 
With kindling admiration, and there came 
A gradual softness o'er the flinty light 
Within her eyes ; a shadow crept around 
Their yellow disks, and something like a dawn 
Of recognition of superior will, 
Of brute affection, sympathy enslaved 
By higher nature, then informed her face. 
Thrilling in every nerve, I stretched my hand, — 
She silent, moveless, — touched her velvet head, 
And with a warm, sweet shiver in my blood, 
Stroked down the ruffled hairs. She did not start ; 






65 



But, in a moment's lapse, drew up one paw 

And moved a step, — another, — till her breath 

Came hot upon my face. She stopped : she rolled 

A deep-voiced note of pleasure and of love, 

And gathering up her spotted length, lay down, 

Her head upon my lap, and forward thrust 

One heavy-moulded paw across my knees, 

The glittering talons sheathing tenderly. 

Thus we, in that oasis all alone, 

Sat when the sun went down : the Pard and I, 

Caressing and caressed : and more of love 

And more of confidence between us came, 

I grateful for my safety, she alive 

With the dumb pleasure of companionship, 

Which touched with instincts of humanity 

Her brutish nature. W 7 hen I slept, at last, 

My arm was on her neck. 

The morrow brought 
No rupture of the bond between us twain. 
The creature loved me ; she would bounding come, 
Cat-like, to rub her great, smooth, yellow head 
Against my knee, or with rough tongue would lick 
The hand that stroked the velvet of her hide. 
How beautiful she was ! how lithe and free 
The undulating motions of her frame ! 
5 



66 



How shone,, like isles of tawny gold, her spots, 
Mapped on the creamy white ! And when she walked, 
No princess, with the crown about her brows, 
Looked so superbly royal. Ah, my friends, 
Smile as you may, but I would give this life 
With its fantastic pleasures — ay, even that 
One leads in Paris — to be back again 
In the red Desert with my splendid Pard. 

That grove of date-trees was our home, our world, 

A star of verdure in a sky of sand. 

Without the feathery fringes of its shade 

The naked Desert ran, its burning round 

Sharp as a sword : the naked sky above, 

Awful in its immensity, not shone 

There only, where the sun supremely flamed, 

But all its deep-blue walls were penetrant 

With dazzling light. God reigned in Heaven and 

Earth, 
An Everlasting Presence, and his care 
Fed us, alike his children. From the trees 
That shook down pulpy dates, and from the spring, 
The quiet author of that happy grove, 
My wants were sated ; and when midnight came, 
Then would the Pard steal softly from my side, 
Take the unmeasured sand with flying leaps 






67 



And vanish in the dusk, returning sooa 
With a gazelle's light carcass in her jaws. 
So passed the days, and each the othei taught 
Our simple language. She would come at call 
Of the pet name I gave her, bound and sport 
When so I bade, and she could read my face 
Through all its changing moods, with better skill 
Than many a Christian comrade. Pard and bea^t. 
Though you may say she was, she had a soul. 

But Sin will find the way to Paradise. 

Ere long the sense of isolation fed 

My mind with restless fancies. I began 

To miss the life of camp, the march, the fight, 

The soldier's emulation : youthful blood 

Ran in my veins : the silence lost its charm, 

And when the morning sunrise lighted up 

The threshold of the Desert, I would gaze 

With looks of bitter longing o'er the sand. 

At last, I filled my soldier's sash with dates, 

Drank deeply of the spring, and while ihe Pard 

Roamed in the starlight for her forage, took 

A westward course. The grove already lay 

A dusky speck — no more — when through the night 

Came the forsaken creature's eager cry. 

Into a sandy pit I crept, and heard 



68 



Her bounding on my track until she rolled 
Down from the brink upon me. Then with cries 
Of joy and of distress, the touching proof 
Of the poor beast's affection, did she strive 
To lift me — Pardon, friends ! these foolish eyes 
Must have their will : and had you seen her then, 
In her mad gambols, as we homeward went, 
Your hearts had softened too. 

But I, possessed 
By some vile devil of mistrust, became 
More jealous and impatient. In my heart 
I cursed the grove, and with suspicions wronged 
The noble Pard. She keeps me here, I thought, 
Deceived with false caresses, as a cat 
Toys with the trembling mouse she straight devours. 
Will she so gently fawn about my feet, 
When the gazelles are gone ? Will she crunch dates, 
And drink the spring, whose only drink is blood ? 
Am I to ruin flattered, and by whom ? — 
Not even a man, a wily beast of prey. 
Thus did the Devil whisper in mine ear, 
Till those black thoughts were rooted in my heart 
And made me cruel. So it chanced one day, 
That as I watched a flock of birds, that wheeled, 
And dipped, and circled in the air, the Pard, 






69 



Moved by a freak of fond solicitude 

To win my notice, closed her careful fangs 

About my knee. Scarce knowing what I did, 

In the blind impulse of suspicious fear, 

I plunged, full home, my dagger in her neck. 

God ! could I but recall that blow ! She loosed 

Her hold, as softly as a lover quits 

His mistress' lips, and with a single groan, 

Full of reproach and sorrow, sank and died. 

What had I done ! Sure never on this earth 

Did sharper grief so base a deed requite. 

Its murderous fury gone, my heart was racked 

With pangs of wild contrition, spent itself 

In cries and tears, the while I called on God 

To curse me for my sin. There lay the Pard, 

Her splendid eyes all film, her blazoned fell 

Smirched with her blood ; and I, her murderer, 

Less than a beast, had thus repaid her love. 

Ah, friends ! with all this guilty memory 
My heart is sore : and little now remains 
To tell you, but that afterwards — how long, 
I could not know — our soldiers picked me up, 
Wandering about the Desert, wild with grief 
And sobbing like a child. My nerves have grown 
To steel, in many battles ; I can step 



"0 



Without a shudder through the heaps of slain 
But never, never, till the day I die, 
Prevent a woman's weakness when I think 
Upon my desert Pard : and if a man 
Deny this truth she taught me, to his face 
I say he lies : a beast may have a soul. 



71 



ARIEL IN THE CLOVEN PINE. 

Now the frosty stars are gone : 
I have watched them, one by one, 
Fading on the shores of Dawn. 
Round and full the glorious sun 
Walks with level step the spray, 
Through his vestibule of Day, 
While the wolves that late did howl 
Slink to dens and coverts foul, 
Guarded by the demon owl, 
Who, last night, with mocking croon, 
Wheeled athwart the chilly moon, 
And with eyes that blankly glared 
On my direful torment stared. 

The lark is flickering in the light ; 
Still the nightingale doth sing ; — 
All the isle, alive with Spring, 
Lies, a jewel of delight, 



72 



On the blue sea's heaving breast : 
Not a breath from out the West, 
But some balmy smell doth bring 
From the sprouting myrtle buds, 
Or from meadowy vales that lie 
Like a green inverted sky, 
Which the yellow cowslip stars, 
And the bloomy almond woods, 
Cloud-like, cross with roseate bars. 
All is life that I can spy, 
To the farthest sea and sky, 
And my own the only pain 
Within this ring of Tyrrhene main. 

In the gnarled and cloven Pine 
Where that hell-born hag did chain me, 
All this orb of cloudless shine, 
All this youth in Nature's veins 
Tingling with the season's wine, 
With a sharper torment pain me. 
Pansies in soft April rains 
Fill their stalks with honeyed sap 
Drawn from Earth's prolific lap ; 
But the sluggish blood she brings 
To the tough Pine's hundred rings, 
Closer locks their cruel hold, 



73 



Closer draws the scaly bark 
Round the crevice, damp and cold, 
Where my useless wings I fold, — 
Sealing me in iron dark. 
By this coarse and alien state 
Is my dainty essence wronged ; 
Finer senses that belonged 
To my freedom, chafe at Fate, 
Till the happier elves I hate, 
Who in moonlight dances turn 
Underneath the palmy fern, 
Or in light and twinkling bands 
Follow on with linked hands 
To the Ocean's yellow sands. 

Primrose-eyes each morning ope 
In their cool, deep beds of grass ; 
Violets make the airs that pass 
Telltales of their fragrant slope. 
I can see them where they spring 
Never brushed by fairy wing. 
All those corners I can spy 
In the island's solitude, 
Where the dew is never dry, 
Nor the miser bees intrude. 



74 



Cups of rarest hue are there, 
Full of perfumed wine undrained, — 
Mushroom banquets, ne'er profaned, 
Canopied by maiden-hair. 
Pearls I see upon the sands, 
Never touched by other hands, 
And the rainbow bubbles shine 
On the ridged and frothy brine, 
Tenantless of voyager 
Till they burst in vacant air. 
O, the songs that sung might be, 
And the mazy dances woven, 
Had that witch ne'er crossed the sea 
And the Pine been never cloven ! 

Many years my direst pain 

Has made the wave-rocked isle complain. 

Winds, that from the Cyclades 

Came, to blow in wanton riot 

Round its shore's enchanted quiet, 

Bore my wailings on the seas ; 

Sorrowing birds in Autumn went 

Through the world with my lament. 

Still the bitter fate is mine, 

All delight unshared to see, 



Smarting in the cloven Pine, 
While I wait the tardy axe 
Which, perchance, shall set me free 
From the damned witch, Sycorax. 



76 



THE HARP: AN ODE. 



When bleak winds through the Northern pines were 
sweeping, 

Some hero-skald, reclining on the sand, 
Attuned it first, the chords harmonious keeping 

With murmuring forest and with moaning strand : 
And when, at night, the horns of mead foamed over, 

And torches flared around the wassail board, 
It breathed no song of maid, nor sigh of lover, 

It rang aloud the triumphs of the sword ! 
It mocked the thunders of the ice-ribbed ocean, 

With clenched hands beating back the dragon's 
prow ; 
It gave Berserker arms their battle motion, 

And swelled the red veins on the Viking's brow ! 



77 



ii. 



No myrtle, plucked in dalliance, ever sheathed it, 

To melt the savage ardor of its flow ; 
The only gauds wherewith its lord enwreathed it, 

The lusty fir and Druid mistletoe. 
Thus bound, it kept the old, accustomed cadence, 

Whether it pealed through slumberous ilex bowers 
In stormy wooing of Byzantine maidens, 

Or shook Trinacria's languid lap of flowers ; 
Whether Genseric's conquering march it chanted, 

Till cloudy Atlas rang with Gothic staves, 
Or where gray Calpe's pillared feet are planted, 

Died grandly out upon the unknown waves ! 



in. 



Not unto Scania's bards alone belonging, 

The craft that loosed its tongues of changing sound, 
For Ossian played, and ghosts of heroes, thronging, 

Leaned on their spears above the misty mound. 
The Cambrian eagle, round his eyrie winging, 

Heard the wild chant through mountain-passes rolled, 
When bearded throats chimed in with mighty singing, 

And monarchs listened, in their torques of gold : 



78 



Its dreary wail, blent with the sea-mews' clangor, 
Surged round the lonely keep of Penmaen-Mawr ; 

It pealed aloud, in battle's glorious anger, 
Behind the banner of the Blazing Star ! 



IV. 

The strings are silent ; who shall dare to wake them, 

Though later deeds demand their living powers ? 
Silent in other lands, what hand shall make them 

Leap as of old, to shape the songs of ours ? 
Here, while the sapless bulk of Europe moulders, 

Springs the rich blood to hero-veins unsealed, — 
Source of that Will, that on its fearless shoulders 

Would bear the world's fate lightly as a shield : 
Here moves a larger life, to grander measures 

Beneath our sky and through our forests rung ; 
Why sleeps the harp, forgetful of its treasures, — 

Buried in songs that never yet were sung ? 



Great, solemn songs, that with majestic sounding 
Should swell the Nation's heart from sea to sea ; 

Informed with power, with earnest hope abounding 
And prophecies of triumph yet to be ! 






79 



Songs, by the wild wind for a thousand ages 

Hummed o'er our central prairies, vast and lone ; 
Glassed by the Northern lakes in crystal pages, 

And carved by hills on pinnacles of stone ; 
Songs chanted now, where undiscovered fountains 

Make in the wilderness their babbling home, 
And through the deep-hewn canons of the mountains 

Plunge the cold rivers in perpetual foam ! 



VI. 



Sung but by these : our forests have no voices ; 

Rapt with no loftier strain our rivers roll ; 
Far in the sky, no song-crowned peak rejoices 

In words that give the silent air a soul. 
Wake, mighty Harp ! and thrill the shores that hearken 

For the first peal of thine immortal rhyme : 
Call from the shadows that begin to darken 

The beaming forms of our heroic time : 
Sing us of deeds, that on thy strings outsoaring 

The ancient soul they glorified so long, 
Shaft win the world to hear thy grand restoring, 

And own thy latest thy sublimest song ! 



80 



SERAPION. 

Cobie hither, Child ! thou silent, shy- 
Young creature of the glorious eye ! 
Though never yet by ruder air 
Than father's kiss or mother's prayer 
Were stirred the tendrils of thy hair, 
The sadness of a soul that stands 
Withdrawn from Childhood's frolic bands, 
A stranger in the land, I trace 
Upon thy brow's cherubic grace 
The tender pleading of thy face, 
Where other stars than Joy and Hope 
Have cast thy being's horoscope. 

For thee, the threshold of the world 
Is yet with morning dews impcarled ; 
The nameless radiance of Birth 
Imbathcs thy atmosphere of Earth, 



81 



And, like a finer sunshine, swims 
Round every motion of thy limbs : 
The sweet, sad wonder and surprise 
Of waking glimmers in thine eyes, 
And wiser instinct, purer sense, 
And gleams of rare intelligence 
Betray the converse held by thee 
In the angelic family. 

Come hither, Boy ! For while I press 
Thy lips' confiding tenderness, 
Less broad and dark the spaces be 
Which Life has set 'twixt thee and me. 
Thy soul's white feet shall soon depart 
On paths I walked with eager heart ; 
God give thee, in His kindly grace, 
A brighter road, a loftier place ! 
I see thy generous nature flow 
In boundless trust to friend and foe, 
And leap, despite of shocks and harms, 
To clasp the world in loving arms. 
I see that glorious circle shrink 
Back to thy feet, at Manhood's brink, 
Narrowed to one, one image fair, 
And all its splendor gathered there. 
6 



82 



The shackles of experience then 
Sit lightly as on meaner men : 
In flinty paths thy feet may bleed, 
Thorns pierce thy flesh, thou shalt not heed, 
Till when, all panting from the task, 
Thine arms outspread their right shall ask, 
Thine arms outspread that right shall fly, 
The star shall burst, the splendor die ! 
Go, with thy happier brothers play, 
As heedless and as wild as they ; 
Seek not so soon thy separate way, 
Thou lamb in Childhood's field astray ! 

Whence earnest thou ? what angel bore 
Thee past so many a fairer shore 
Of guarding love, and guidance mild, 
To drop thee on this barren wild ? 
Thy soul is lonely as a star, 
When all its fellows muffled are, — 
A single star, whose light appears 
To glimmer through subduing tears. 
The father who begat thee sees 
In thee no deeper mysteries 
Than load his heavy ledger's page, 
And swell for him thy heritage. 



83 



A hard, cold man, of punctual face, 
Renowned in Credit's holy-place, 
Whose very wrinkles seem arrayed 
In cunning hieroglyphs of trade, — 
Whose gravest thought but just unlocks 
The problems of uncertain stocks, — 
Whose farthest flights of hope extend 
From dividend to dividend. 
Thy mother, — but a mother's name 
Too sacred is, too sweet for blame. 
No doubt she loves thee, — loves the shy, 
Strange beauty of thy glorious eye ; 
Loves the soft mouth, whose drooping line 
Is silent music ; loves to twine 
Thy silky hair in ringlets trim ; 
To watch thy lightsome play of limb ; 
But, God forgive me ! I, who find 
The soul within that beauty shrined, 
I love thee more, I know thy worth 
Better, than she who gave thee birth. 

Are they thy keepers ? They would thrust 
The priceless jewel in the dust ; 
Would tarnish in their careless hold 
The vessel of celestial gold. 



84 



Who gave them thee ? What fortune lent 
Their hands the delicate instrument, 
Which finer hands might teach to hymn 
The harmonies of Seraphim, 
Which they shall make discordant soon, 
The sweet bells jangled, out of tune ? 
Mine eyes are dim : I cannot see 
The purposes of Destiny, 
But than my love Heaven could not shine 
More lovingly, if thou wert mine ! 
Rest then securely on my heart : 
Give me thy trust : my child thou art, 
And 1 shall lead thee through the years 
To Hopes and Passions, Loves and Fears, 
Till, following up Life's endless plan, 
A strong and self-dependent Man, 
I see thee stand and strive with men : 
Thy Father now, thy Brother then. 



85 



Moan, ye wild winds ! around the pane, 
And fall, thou drear December rain ! 
Fill with your gusts the sullen day, 
Tear the last clinging leaves away ! 
Reckless as yonder naked tree, 
No blast of yours can trouble me. 

Give me your chill and wild embrace, 
And pour your baptism on my face ; 
Sound in mine ears the airy moan 
That sweeps in desolate monotone, 
Where on the unsheltered hill-top beat 
The marches of your homeless feet 

Moan on, ye winds ! and pour, thou rain ! 
Your stormy sobs and tears are vain, 



86 



If shed for her whose fading eyes 
Will open soon on Paradise : 
The eye of Heaven shall blinded be, 
Or ere ye cease, if shed for me. 



87 



TAURUS, 



The Scorpion's stars crawl down behind the sun, 

And when he drops below the verge of day, 
The glittering fangs, their fervid courses run, 

Cling to his skirts and follow him away. 
Then, ere the heels of flying Capricorn 

Have touched the western mountain's fading 
rim, 
I mark, stern Taurus, through the twilight gray 
The glinting of thy horn, 

And sullen front, uprising large and dim, 
Bent to the starry hunter's sword, at bay. 



88 



ii. 



Thy hoofs, unwilling, climb the sphery vault ; 

Thy red eye trembles with an angry glare, 
When the hounds follow, and in fierce assault 

Bay through the fringes of the lion's hair. 
The stars that once were mortal in their love, 

And by their love are made immortal now, 
Cluster like golden bees upon thy mane, 
When thou, possessed with Jove, 

Bore sweet Europa's garlands on thy brow 
And stole her from the green Sicilian plain. 



in. 



Type of the stubborn force that will not bend 

To loftier art, — soul of defiant breath 
That blindly stands and battles to the end, 

Nerving resistance with the throes of death, — 
Majestic Taurus ! when thy wrathful eye 

Flamed brightest, and thy hoofs a moment stayed 
Their march at Night's meridian, I was born : 
But in the western sky, 

Like sweet Europa, Love's fair star delayed, 
To hang her garland on thy silver horn. 






IV. 



Thou giv'st that temper of enduring mould, 

That slights the wayward bent of Destiny,— 
Such as sent forth the shaggy Jarls of old 

To launch their dragons on the unknown sea : 
Such as kept strong the sinews of the sword, 

The proud, hot blood of battle, — welcome made 
The headsman's axe, the rack, the martyr-fire, 
The ignominious cord, 

When but to yield, had pomps and honors laid 
On heads that moulder in ignoble mire. 



Night is the summer when the soul grows ripe 

With Life's full harvest : of her myriad suns, 
Thou dost not gild the quiet herdsman's pipe, 

Nor royal state, that royal action shuns. 
But in the noontide of thy ruddy stars 

Thrive strength, and daring, and the blood whence 
springs 
The Heraclidean seed of heroes ; then 
Were sundered Gaza's bars ; 

Then, 'mid the smitten Hydra's loosened rings. 
His slayer rested, in the Lernean fen. 



90 



VI. 






Thine is the subtle element that turns 

To fearless act the impulse of the hour, — 
The secret fire, whose flash electric burns 

To every source of passion and of power. 
Therefore I hail thee, on thy glittering track : 

Therefore I watch thee, when the night grows 
dark, 
Slow-rising, front Orion's sword along 
The starry zodiac, 

And from thy mystic beam demand a spark 
To warm my soul with more heroic song. 



91 



THE ODALISQUE. 

In marble shells the fountain splashes ; 

Its falling spray is turned to stars, 
When some light wind its pinion dashes 

Against thy gilded lattice-bars. 
Around the shafts, in breathing cluster, 

The roses of Damascus run, 
And through the summer's moons of lustre 

The tulip's goblet drinks the sun. 

The day, through shadowy arches fainting, 

Reveals the garden's burst of bloom, 
With lights of shifting iris painting 

The jasper pavement of thy room : 
Enroofed with palm and laurel bowers, 

Thou seest, beyond, the cool kiosk, 
And far away the pencilled towers 

That shoot from many a stately mosque. 



92 



Thou hast no world beyond the chamber 

Whose inlaid marbles mock the flowers, t 
Where burns thy lord's chibouk of amber, 

To charm the languid evening hours , 
Where sounds the lute's impassioned yearning 

Through all enchanted tales of old, 
And spicy cressets, dimly burning, 

Swing on their chains of Persian gold. 

No more, in half-remembered vision, 

Thy distant childhood comes to view ; 
That star-like world of shapes Elysian 

Has faded from thy morning's blue : 
The eastern winds that cross the Taurus 

Have now no voice of home beyond, 
Where light waves foam in endless chorus 

Against the walls of Trebizond. 

For thee the Past may never reckon 

Its hoard of saddening memories o'er, 
Nor shapes from out the Future beckon 

To joys that only live in store. 
Thy life is in the gorgeous Present, 

An Orient summer, warm and bright ; 
No gleam of beauty evanescent, 

But one long time of deep delight. 



93 



SORROWFUL MUSIC. 

Give me music, or I die ; 
Music, wherein Sorrow's cry 
Is a sweet, aerial sigh, — 
Where Despair is harmony. 

Give me music, such as winds 
To the ambushed grief, and finds 
Clews of soft-enticing sound, 
Notes that soothe and cannot wound, 
Leading with a tender care 
Outward into brighter air : 
Music which, with welcome pain, 
Melted from the master's brain, 
When his sorrow, freed from smart, 
Laid its head upon his heart, 
And the measure, broken, slow, — 
Shed with tears in mingled flow, — 



94 

All its mighty secret spake 
And it slept : it will not wake. 

Give me music, sad and strong, 
Drawn from deeper founts than Song ; 
More impassioned, full, and free 
Than the Poet's numbers be : 
Music which can master thee, 
Stern enchantress, Memory ! 
Piercing through the gloomy stress 
Of thy gathered bitterness, 
As the summer lightnings play 
Through a cloud's edge far away 

Give me music, I am dumb ; 
Choked with tears that never come 
Give me music ; sigh or word 
Such a sorrow never stirred, — 
Sorrow that with blinding pain 
Lies like fire on heart and brain. 
Earth and Heaven bring no relief 
I am dumb ; this weight of grief 
Locks my lips ; I cannot cry : 
Give me music, or I die. 



95 



THE TULIP-TREE. 

Now my blood, with long-forgotten fleetness, 

Bounds again to Boyhood's blithest tune, 
While I drink a life of brimming sweetness 

From the glory of the breezy June. 
Far above, the fields of ether brighten ; 

Forest leaves are twinkling in their glee ; 
And the daisy's snows around me whiten, 

Drifted down the sloping lea ! 

On the hills he standeth as a tower, 

Shining in the morn, — the Tulip-Tree ! 
On his rounded turrets beats the shower, 

While his emerald flags are flapping free : 
But when Summer, 'mid her harvests standing, 

Pours to him the sun's unmingled wine, 
O'er his branches, all at once expanding, 

How the starry blossoms shine ! 



96 






Through the glossy leaves they burn, unfolded, 

Like the fiery-breasted oriole, — 
Filled with sweetness, as a thought new moulded 

Into being by a poet's soul ! 
Violet hills, against the sunrise lying, 

See them kindle when the stars grow pale, 
And their lips, unclosed in balmy sighing, 

Sweeten all 'the morning gale. 

Then all day, in every opening chalice, 

Drains their honey-drops the revelling bee, 
Till the dove-winged Sleep makes thee her palace, 

Filled with song-like murmurs, Tulip-Tree ! 
In thine arms are rocked the dreams enchanted 

Which in Childhood's heart their dwelling made; 
Dreams, whose glory to my brain is granted, 

When I lie amid thy shade. 

Now, while Earth's full heart is throbbing over 

With its wealth of light and life and joy, 
Who can feel how later years shall cover 

With their blight the visions of the boy? 
Who can see the shadows downward darken, 

While the splendid morning bids aspire, 
Or the turf upon his coffin hearken, 

When his pulses leap with fire! 



97 



Wind of June, that sweep's! the rolling meadow, 

Thou shalt wail in branches rough and bare, 
While the tree, o'erhung with storm and shadow, 

Writhes and creaks amid the gusty air. 
All his leaves, like shields of fairies scattered, 

Then shall drop before the North-wind's spears, 
And his limbs, by hail and tempest battered, 

Feel the weight of wintry years. 

Yet, why cloud the rapture and the glory 

Of the Beautiful, bequeathed us now? 
Why relinquish all the Summer's £>ory, 

Calling up the bleak autumnal bough ? 
Let thy blossoms in the morning brighten, 

Happy heart, as doth the Tulip-Tree, 
While the daisy's snows around us whiten, 

Drifted down the sloping lea ! 
7 



m 



AUTUMNAL VESPERS. 

The clarion Wind, that blew so loud at morn, 

Whirling a thousand leaves from every bough 
Of the purple woods, has not a whisper now ; 

Hushed on the uplands is the huntsman's horn, 

And huskers whistling round the tented corn : 

The snug warm cricket lets his clock run down, 

Scared by the chill, sad hour that makes forlorn 
The Autumn's gold and brown. 

The light is dying out on field and wold ; 

The life is dying in the leaves and grass. 
The World's last breath no longer dims the glass 
Of waning sunset, yellow, pale, and cold. 
His genial pulse, which Summer made so bold, 

Has ceased. Haste, Night, and spread thy de- 
cent pall ! 
The silent, stiffening Frost makes havoc : fold 
The darkness over all ! 



99 



The light is dying out o'er all the land, 

And in my heart the light is dying. She, 
My life's best life, is fading silently 

From Earth, from me, and from the dreams we planned, 

Since first Love led us with his beaming hand 

From hope to hope, yet kept his crown in store. 

The light is dying out o'er all the land : 
To me it comes no more. 

The blossom of my heart, she shrinks away, 

Stricken with deadly blight : more wan and weak 
Her love replies in blanching lip and cheek, 

And gentler in her dear eyes, day by day. 

God, in Thy mercy, bid the arm delay, 

Which through her being smites to dust my own ! 

Thou gav'st the seed thy sun and showers : why slay 
The blossoms yet unblown ? 

In vain, — in vain ! God will not bid the Spring 

Replace with sudden green the Autumn's gold ; 
And as the night-mists, gathering damp and cold, 

Strike up the vales where water-courses sing, 

Death's mist shall strike along her veins, and cling 
Thenceforth forever round her glorious frame : 

For all her radiant presence, May shall bring 
A memory and a name. 



100 



What know the woods, that soon shall be so stark ? 
What know the barren fields, the songless air, 
Locked in benumbing cold, of blooms more fair 

In mornings ushered by the April lark ? 

Weak solace this, which Grief will never hark ; 
Blind as a bud in stiff December's mail, 

To lift her look beyond the frozen dark 
No memory can avail. 

I never knew the autumnal eves could wear, 

With all their pomp, so drear a hue of Death ; 
I never knew their still and solemn breath 

Could rob the breaking heart of strength to bear, 

Feeding the blank submission of despair. 

Yet, peace, sad soul ! reproach and pity shine 

Suffused through starry tears : bend thou in prayer, 
Rebuked by Love divine. 

Our life is scarce the twinkle of a star 

In God's eternal day. Obscure and dim 
With mortal clouds, it yet may beam for Him, 

And darkened here, shine fair to spheres afar. 

] will be patient, lest my sorrow bar 

His grace and blessing, and I fall supine : 

In my own hands my want and weakness are, — 
My strength, O God ! in Thine. 



lO.l 



ODE TO SHELLEY. 



Why art thou dead ? Upon the hills once more 

The golden mist of waning Autumn lies ; 
The slow-pulsed billows wash along the shore, 
And phantom isles are floating in the skies 
They wait for thee : a spirit in the sand 

Hushes, expectant for thy coming tread ; 
The light wind pants to lift thy trembling hail . 
Inward, the silent land 
Lies with its mournful woods ; — why art tn -. 
dead, 
When Earth demands that thou shalt call hei 
fair ? 



102 



ii. 






Why art thou dead ? I too demand thy song, 

To speak the language yet denied to mine, 
Twin-doomed with thee, to feel the scorn of Wrong, 

To worship Beauty as a thing divine ! 
Thou art afar : wilt thou not soon return 

To tell me that which thou hast never told ? 
To clasp my throbbing hand, and, by the shore 
Or dewy mountain-fern, 

Pour out thy heart as to a friend of old, 
Touched with a twilight sadness ? Nevermore. 



in. 



I could have told thee all the sylvan joy 

Of trackless woods ; the meadows far apart, 
Within whose fragrant grass, a lonely boy, 

I thought of God ; the trumpet at my heart, 
When on bleak mountains roared the midnight storm, 

And T was bathed in lightning, broad and grand : 
O, more than all, with soft and reverent breath 
And forehead flushing warm, 

I would have led thee through the summer land 
Of early Love, and past my dreams of Death ! 



103 



IV. 



In thee, Immortal Brother ! had I found 

That Voice of Earth, that fails my feebler lines 
The awful speech of Rome's sepulchral ground ; 

The dusky hymn of Vallombrosa's pines ! 
From thee the noise of Ocean would have taken 

A grand defiance round the moveless shores, 
And vocal grown the Mountain's silent head : 
Canst thou not yet awaken 

Beneath the funeral cypress ? Earth implores 
Thy presence for her son ; — why art thou dead ? 



v. 



I do but rave : for it is better thus. 

Were once thy starry nature given to mine, 
In the one life which would encircle us 

My voice would melt, my soul be lost in thine. 
Better to bear the far sublimer pain 

Of Thought that has not ripened into speech, 
To hear in silence Truth and Beauty sing 
Divinely to the brain ; 

For thus the Poet at the last shall reach 
His own soul's voice, nor crave a brother's string. 



104 






SICILIAN WINE. 

I've drunk Sicilians crimson wine ! 

The blazing vintage pressed 

From grapes on Etna's breast, 

What time the mellowing autumn sun did shine 

I've drunk the wine ! 

I feel its blood divine 

Poured on the sluggish tide of mine, 

Till, kindling slow, 

Its fountains glow 

With the light that swims 

On their trembling brims, 

And a molten sunrise floods my limbs ! 

What do I here ? 

I've drunk the wine, 

And lo ! the bright blue heaven is clear 

Above the ocean's bluer sphere, 



105 



Seen through the long arcades of pine, 

Inwoven and arched with vine ! 

The glades are green below ; 

The temple shines afar ; 

Above, old Etna's snow 

Sparkles with many an icy star : 

I see the mountain and its marble wall, 

Where gleaming waters fall 

And voices call, 

Singing and calling 

Like chorals falling 

Through pearly doors of some Olympian hall, 

Where Love holds bacchanal. 

Sicilian wine ! Sicilian wine ! 

Summer, and Music, and Song divine 

Are thine, — all thine ! 

A sweet wind over the roses plays ; 

The wild bee hums at my languid ear ; 

The mute-winged moth serenely strays 

On the downy atmosphere, 

Like hovering Sleep, that overweighs 

My lids with his shadow, yet comes not near 

Who'll share with me this languor ? 

With me the juice of Etna sip ? 

Who press the goblet's lip 



106 



Refusing mine the while with love's enchanting anger? 

Would I were young Adonis now ! 

With what an ardor bold 

W T ithin my arms Pd fold 

Fair Aphrodite of Idalian mould, 

And let the locks that hide her gleaming brow 

Fall o'er my shoulder as she lay 

With the fair swell of her immortal breast 

Upon my bosom pressed, 

Giving Olympian thrills to its enamoured clay ! 

Bacchus and Pan have fled : 

No heavy Satyr crushes with his tread 

The verdure of the meadow ground, 

But in their stead 

The Nymphs are leading a bewildering round, 

Vivid and light, as o'er some flowering rise 

A dance of butterflies, 

Their tossing hair with slender lilies crowned, 

And greener ivy than o'erran 

The brows of Bacchus and the reed of Pan ! 

I faint, I die : 

The flames expire, 

That made my blood a fluid fire : 

Steeped in delicious weariness I lie. 



107 



O, lay me in some pearled shell, 

Soft-balanced on the rippling sea, 

Where sweet, cheek-kissing airs may wave 

Their fresh wings over me ; 

Let me be wafted with the swell 

Of Nereid voices ; let no billow rave 

To break the cool green crystal of the sea , 

For I will wander free 

Past the blue islands and the fading shores, 

To Calpe and the far Azores, 

And still beyond, and wide away 

Beneath the dazzling wings of tropic day, 

Where, on unruffled seas, 

Sleep the green isles of the Hesperides. 

The Triton's trumpet calls : 

I hear, I wake, I rise : 

The sound peals up the skies, 

And mellowed Echo falls 

In answer back from Heaven's cerulean walls. 

Give me the lyre that Orpheus played upon, 

Or bright Hyperion, — 

Nay, rather come, thou of the mighty bow, 

Come thou below, 

Leaving thy steeds unharnessed go ! 

Sing as thou wilt, my voice shall dare to follow, 



108 

And I will sun me in thine awful glow, 

Divine Apollo ! 

Then thou thy lute shalt twine 

With Bacchic tendrils of the glorious vine 

That gave Sicilian wine : 

And henceforth when the breezes run 

Over its clusters, ripening in the sun, 

The leaves shall still be playing, 

Unto thy lute its melody repaying, 

And I, that quaff, shall evermore be free 

To mount thy car and ride the heavens with thee ! 






109 



SUMMER'S BACCHANAL. 

Fill the cup from some secretest fountain, 
Under granite ledges, deep and low, 

Where the crystal vintage of the mountain 
Runs in foam from dazzling fields of snow . 

Some lost stream, that in a woodland hollow 
Coils, to sleep its weariness away, 

Shut from prying stars, that fain would follow, 
In the emerald glooms of hemlock spray. 

Fill, dear friend, a goblet cool and sparkling 
As the sunlight of October morns, — 

Not for us the crimson wave, that darkling 
Stains the lips of olden drinking-horns ! 



110 



We will quaff, beneath the noontide glowing, 
Draughts of nectar, sweet as faery dew ; 

Couched on ferny banks, where light airs blowing, 
Shake the leaves between us and the blue. 



We will pledge, in breathless, long libation, 
All we have been, or have sworn to be, — 

Fame, and Joy, and Love's dear adoration, — 
Summer's lusty bacchanals are we ! 

Fill again, and let our goblets, clashing, 
Stir the feathery ripples on the brim : 

Let the light, within their bosoms flashing, 
Leap like youth to every idle limb ! 

Round the white roots of the fragrant lily, 
And the mossy hazels, purple-stained, 

Once the music of these waters chilly 

Gave return for all the sweetness drained. 



How that rare, delicious, woodland flavor 
Mocked my palate in the fever hours, 

When I pined for springs of coolest savor, 
As the burninc; Earth for thunder-showers ! 



Ill 



In the wave, which through my maddened dreaming 
Flowed to cheat me, fill the cups again ! 

Drink, dear friend, to life which is not seeming, — 
Fresh as this to manhood's heart and brain ! 



Fill, fill high ! and while our goblets, ringing, 
Shine with vintage of the mountain-snow, 

Youth shall bid his Fountain, blithely springing, 
Brim our souls to endless overflow ! 



113 



STORM-LINES. 

When the rains of November are dark on the hills, and 

the pine-trees incessantly roar 
To the sound of the wind-beaten crags, and the floods 

that in foam through their black channels pour : 

When the breaker-lined coast stretches dimly afar 
through the desolate waste of the gale, 

And the clang of the sea-gull at nightfall is heard from 
the deep, like a mariner's wail : 

When the gray sky drops low, and the forest is bare, 
and the laborer is housed from the storm, 

And the world is a blank, save the light of his home 
through the gust shining redly and warm : — 






113 



Go thou forth, if the brim of thy heart with its tropical 

fulness of life overflow, — 
If the sun of thy bliss in the zenith is hung, nor a 

shadow reminds thee of woe ! 

Leave the home of thy love ; leave thy labors of fame ; 

in the rain and the darkness go forth, 
When the cold winds unpausingly wail as they drive 

from the cheerless expanse of the North. 

Thou shalt turn from the cup that was mantling before ; 

thou shalt hear the eternal despair 
Of the hearts that endured and were broken at last, 

from the hills and the sea and the air ! 

Thou shah hear how the Earth, the maternal, laments 
for the children she nurtured with tears, — 

How the forest but deepens its wail and the breakers 
their roar, with the march of the years ! 

Then the gleam of thy hearth-fire shall dwindle away, 
and the lips of thy loved ones be still ; 

And thy soul shall lament in the moan of the storm, 
sounding wide on the shelterless hill. 
8 



114 



All the woes of existence shall stand at thy heart, and 

the sad eyes of myriads implore, 
In the darkness and storm of their being, the ray, 

streaming out through thy radiant door. 

Look again : how that star of thy Paradise dims, 
through the warm tears, unwittingly shed; — 

Thou art man, and a sorrow so bitterly wrung never 
fell on the dust of the Dead ! 

Let the rain of the midnight beat cold on thy cheek, 
and the proud pulses chill in thy frame, 

Till the love of thy bosom is grateful and sad, and 
thou turn'st from the mockery of Fame ! 

Take with humble acceptance the gifts of thy life ; let 
thy joy touch the fountain of tears ; 

For the soul of the Earth, in endurance and pain, gath- 
ers promise of happier years ! 



115 



THE TWO VISIONS. 

Through days of toil, through nightly fears, 
A vision blessed my heart for years ; 
And so secure its features grew, 
My heart believed the blessing true. 

I saw her there, a household dove, 
In consummated peace of love, 
And sweeter joy and saintlier grace 
Breathed o'er the beauty of her face : 

The joy and grace of love at rest, 
The fireside music of the breast, 
When vain desires and restless schemes 
Sleep, pillowed on our early dreams. 



116 

Nor her alone : beside her stood, 
In gentler types, our love renewed ; 
Our separate beings one, in Birth, — 
The darling miracles of Earth. 

The mother's smile, the children's kiss, 
And home's serene, abounding bliss; 
The fruitage of a life that bore 
But idle summer blooms before : 

Such was the vision, far and sweet, 
That, still beyond Time's lagging feet, 
Lay glimmering in my heart for years. 
Dim with the mist of happy tears. 

That vision died, in drops of woe, 
In blotting drops, dissolving slow: 
Now, toiling day and sorrowing night, 
Another vision fills my sight. 

A cold mound in the winter snow ; 
A colder heart at rest below ; 
A life in utter loneness hurled, 
And darkness over all the world. 






117 



THE LIFE OF EARTH. 

The breeze is blowing fresh and strong, 

The rocking shallop chafes its chain, 
And the billows are breaking in swells of song, 

The rhythmical joy of the restless main. 
A spirited stallion paws the sand ; 

A hound is watching with eager eye , 
The tramp of armies is felt in the land, 

And banners are dancing beneath the sky ' 

Let horns be heard in the gray ravine, 

And stormy songs from off the sea ! 
There's blood in my heart, where tears have been, 

And the blood of youth is warm and free. 
Leave, weary Soul, the lifeless lore 

That kept these limbs in a slothful rust : 
Lie down to rest on the quiet shore — 

The Dust has need of the life of dust ! 



118 






Thou art weak and pallid, form of flesh, 

Where the rubicund dawn once left its hue, 
But the Earth shall bare her bosom afresh, 

And give thee the milk of manhood anew. 
Thy locks shall toss on the mountain air, 

Thy limbs shall cool in the sparkling brine ; 
She will brace thy nerves with her forest-fare, 

And warm thy veins with generous wine ! 

Thy loins shall grow to a pard-like power 

On the windy slopes of the riven hills ; 
Thou shalt bare thy breast to the arrowy shower, 

And catch in thine arms the icy rills ! 
Thy vigorous blood shall exult the same, 

Though fevered cares in the spirit start, 
As a pine, when the mountain is swathed in flame, 

Keeps green and fresh in his spicy heart. 

Thou shalt go where the battle-clarions blare, 

As heroes went, ere the brain was lord ; 
Thine eye with the soldier's lust shall glare, 

Thy heart shall smite in the clanging sword. 
The cannon will bellow thy mad desire, 

And the shock of combat thine arm employ, 
Till the thews are steel, and the veins are fire, 

And death at last is a terrible joy ! 






119 



Then tighten the girth and loosen the rein ! 

Unleash the baying, impatient hound, 
And deep in the surging and seething main 

Let every quivering oar be drowned. 
We are free ! we have quelled the tyrant Soul 

We shall fill the world with our rebel mirth, 
While the laughing vineyards crown the bowl 

That brims for us with the Life of Earth f 



120 



STORM SONG. 

The clouds are scudding across the moon, 

A misty light is on the sea ; 
The wind in the shrouds has a wintry tune, 

And the foam is flying free. 

Brothers, a night of terror and gloom 
Speaks in the cloud and gathering roar; 

Thank God, He has given us broad sea-room, 
A thousand miles from shore. 



Down with the hatches on those who sleep ! 

The wild and whistling deck have we ; 
Good watch, my brothers, to-night we'll keep, 

While the tempest is on the sea! 



121 



Though the rigging shriek in his terrible grip, 
And the naked spars be snapped away, 

Lashed to the helm, we'll drive our ship 
In the teeth of the whelming spray! 

Hark ! how the surges o'erleap the deck ! 

Hark ! how the pitiless tempest raves ! 
Ah, daylight will look upon many a wreck 

Drifting over the desert waves. 

Yet, courage, brothers ! we trust the wave, 
With God above us, our guiding chart : 

So, whether to harbor or ocean-grave, 
Be it still with a cheery heart ! 



122 



SONG. 

I plucked for thee the wilding rose 

And wore it on my breast, 
And there, till daylight's dusky close, 

Its silken cheek was pressed ; 
Its desert breath was sweeter far 

Than palace-rose could be, 
Sweeter than all Earth's blossoms are, 

But that thou gav'st to me. 

I kissed its leaves, in fond despite 

Of lips that failed my own, 
And Love recalled that sacred night 

His blushing flower was blown. 
I vowed, no rose should rival mine, 

Though withered now, and pale, 
Till those are plucked, whose white buds twine 

Above thy bridal veil. 



123 



THE WAVES. 



Children are we 

Of the restless sea, 
Swelling in anger or sparkling in glee ; 

We follow our race, 

In shifting chase, 
Over the boundless ocean-space ! 
Who hath beheld where the race begun ? 

Who shall behold it run ? 

Who shall behold it run ? 



When the smooth airs keep 
Their noontide sleep, 
We dimple the cheek of the dreaming deep ; 



121 



When the rough winds come 

From their cloudy home, 
At the tap of the hurricane's thunder-drum, 
Deep are the furrows of wrath we plough, 

Ridsnng his darkened brow ! 

Ridging his darkened brow ! 



III. 



Over us born, 

The unclouded Morn 
Trumpets her joy with the Triton's horn, 

And sun and star 

By the thousand are 
Orbed in our glittering, near and far : 
And the splendor of Heaven, the pomp of Day, 

Shine in our laughing spray ! 

Shine in our laughing spray ! 



IV. 



We murmur our spell 
Over sand and shell ; 
Wc girdle the reef with a combing swell ; 



125 

And bound in the vice 

Of the Arctic ice, 
We build us a palace of grand device,- 
Walls of crystal and splintered spires, 

Flashing with diamond fires ! 

Flashing with diamond fires ! 



v. 



In the endless round 

Of our motion and sound, 
The fairest dwelling of Beauty is found, 

And with voice of strange 

And solemn change, 
The elements speak in our world-wide range, 
Harping the terror, the might, the mirth, 

Sorrows and hopes of Earth ! 

Sorrows and hopes of Earth ! 



126 






SONG. 

From the bosom of ocean I seek thee, 

Thou lamp of my spirit afar, 
As the seaman, adrift in the darkness, 

Looks up for the beam of his star ; 
And when on the moon-lighted water 

The spirits of solitude sleep, 
My soul, in the light of thy beauty, 

Lies hushed as the waves of the deep. 

As the shafts of the sunrise are broken 

Far over the glittering sea, 
Thou hast dawned on the waves of my dreaming, 

And each thought has a sparkle of thee. 
And though, with the white sail distended, 

I speed from the vanishing shore, 
Thou wilt give to the silence of ocean 

The spell of thy beauty the more. 






127 



CRICKET SONG. 

Welcome with thy clicking, cricket ! 

Clicking songs of sober mirth ; 
Autumn, stripping field and thicket, 

Brings thee to my hearth, 
Where thy clicking shrills and quickens, 
While the mist of twilight thickens. 

Lately, by the garden wicket, 

Where the thick grass grew unclipt, 
And the rill beside thee, cricket, 

Silver-trickling slipt, 
Thou, in midday's silent glitter, 
Mocked the flickering linnet's twitter. 

Now thou art, my cheerful cricket, 
Nimble quickener of my song ; 

Not a thought but thou shalt nick it 
In thy lowly tongue, 



• 128 

And my clock, the moments Peking, 
Is thy constant clicking, clicking. 

No annoy, good-humored cricket, 
With thy trills is ever blent ; 

Spleen of mine, how dost thou trick it 
To a calm content ! 

So, by thicket, hearth, or wicket, 

Click thy little lifetime, cricket I 



129 



WORDSWORTH. 

I saw thee not, what time mine eyes beheld 
Far-off Helvellyn skirt the misty sea, 
When wild Manx waters foamed and tumbled free 
Around my keel : I saw thee not, when swelled 
Beyond Northumbrian moors the soft-blue line 
Of mountain chains that look on Windermere ; 
Yet was it joy to know thy paths so near, 
Thy voice on all those hills, Bard divine ! 
But I shall see thee where thou sittest now, 
Musing, uplift o'er deeps of diamond air, 
And I shall feel the splendor of thy brow 
Thrown on the scanty wreath that binds my hair, 
As, looking down benignly on my place, 
Thou read'st the reverence in my lifted face. 
9 



130 



SONNET, 



TO G. H. B. 



You comfort me as one that, knowing Fate, 

Would paint her visage kinder than you deem ; 

You say, my only bliss that is no dream 

She clouds, but makes not wholly desolate. 

Ah, Friend ! your heart speaks words of little weight 

To veil that sadder knowledge, learned in song, 

And 'gainst your solace Grief has made me strong: 

The Gods are jealous of our low estate ; 

They give not Fame to Love, nor Love to Fame ; 

Power cannot taste the joy the humbler share, 

Nor holy Beauty breathe in Luxury's air, 

And all in darkness Genius feeds his flame. 

Wc build and build, poor fools! and all the while 

Some Demon works unseen, and saps the pile. 



CALIFORNIAN BALLADS AND POEMS 



(131) 



133 



MANUELA. 

From the doorway, Manuela, in the sheeny April 

morn, 
Southward looks, along the valley, over leagues of 

gleaming corn ; 
Where the mountain's misty rampart like the wall of 

Eden towers, 
And the isles of oak are sleeping on a painted sea of 

flowers. 

All the air is full of music, for the winter rains are 
o'er, 

And the noisy magpies chatter from the budding syca- 
more ; 

Blithely frisk unnumbered squirrels, over all the grassy 
slope ; 

Where the airy summits brighten, nimbly leaps the 
antelope. 



134 






Gentle eyes of Manuela ! tell me wherefore do ye 
rest 

On the oak's enchanted islands and the flowery ocean's 
breast ? 

Tell me wherefore, down the valley, ye have traced 
the highway's mark 

Far beyond the belts of timber, to the mountain-shad- 
ows dark ? 

Ah, the fragrant bay may blossom and the sprouting 

verdure shine 
With the tears of amber dropping from the tassels of 

the pine, 
And the morning's breath of balsam lightly brush her 

sunny cheek, — 
Little recketh Manuela of the tales of Spring they 

speak. 

When the Summer's burning solstice on the mountain- 
harvests glowed, 

She had watched a gallant horseman riding down the 
valley road ; 

Many times she saw him turning, looking back with 
parting thrills, 

Till amid her tears she lost him, in the shadow of the 
hills. 



135 



Ere the cloudless moons were over, he had passed the 

Desert's sand, 
Crossed the rushing Colorado and the wild Apache 

Land, 
And his laden mules were driven, when the time of 

rains began, 
With the traders of Chihuahua, to the Fair of San 

Juan. 

Therefore watches Manuela, — therefore lightly doth 

she start, 
When the sound of distant footsteps seems the beating 

of her heart ; 
Not a wind the green oak rustles or the redwood 

branches stirs, 
But she hears the silver jingle of his ringing bit and 

spurs. 

Often, out the hazy distance, come the horsemen, day 

by day, 
But they come not as Bernardo, — she can see it far 

away ; 
Well she knows the airy gallop of his mettled ala- 

zan, 
Light as any antelope upon the Hills of Gavilan. 



136 



She would know him 'mid a thousand, by his free and 

gallant air ; 
By the featly-knit sarape, such as wealthy traders 

wear ■ 
By his broidered calzoneros and his saddle, gayly 

spread, 
With its cantle rimmed with silver, and its horn a lion's 

head. 

None like him the light riata on the maddened bull can 

throw ; 
None amid the mountain-canons track like him the 

stealthy doe ; 
And at all the Mission festals, few indeed the revellers 

are 
Who can dance with him the jota, touch with him the 

gay guitar. 

He has said to Manuela, and the echoes linger 

still 
In the cloisters of her bosom, with a secret, tender 

thrill, 
When the bay again has blossomed, and the valley 

stands in corn, 
Shall the bells of Santa Clara usher in the wedding 

morn. 



137 



He has pictured the procession, all in holiday at- 
tire, 

And the laugh of bridal gladness, when they see the 
distant spire ; 

Then their love shall kindle newly, and the world be 
doubly fair 

In the cool, delicious crystal of the summer morning 
air. 

Tender eyes of Manuela ! what has dimmed your lus- 
trous beam ? 

'Tis a tear that falls to glitter on the casket of her 
dream. 

Ah, the eye of Love must brighten, if its watches 
would be true, 

For the star is falsely mirrored in the rose's drop of 
dew ! 

But her eager eyes rekindle, and her breathless bosom 

thrills, 
As she sees a horseman moving in the shadow of the 

hills : 
Now in love and fond thanksgiving they may loose 

their pearly tides, — 
'Tis the alazan that gallops, 'tis Bernardo's self that 

rides ! 



138 



THE FIGHT OF PASO DEL MAR. 

Gusty and raw was the morning, 

A fog hung over the seas, 
And its gray skirts, rolling inland, 

Were torn by the mountain trees ; 
No sound was heard but the dashing 

Of waves on the sandy bar, 
When Pablo of San Diego 

Rode down to the Paso del Mar. 

The pescaddr, out in his shallop, 

Gathering his harvest so wide, 
Sees the dim bulk of the headland 

Loom over the waste of the tide ; 
He sees, like a white thread, the pathway 

Wind round on the terrible wall, 
Where the faint, moving speck 'of the rider 

Seems hoveriim close to its fall. 



139 

Stout Pablo of San Diego 

Rode down from the hills behind ; 
With the bells on his gray mule tinkling, 

He sang through the fog and wind. 
Under his thick, misted eyebrows, 

Twinkled his eye like a star, 
And fiercer he sang as the sea-winds 

Drove cold on the Paso del Mar. 

Now Bernal, the herdsman of Chino, 

Had travelled the shore since dawn, 
Leaving the ranches behind him — 

Good reason had he to be gone ! 
The blood was still red on his dagger, 

The fury was hot in his brain, 
And the chill, driving scud of the breakers 

Beat thick on his forehead in vain. 

With his poncho-wrapped gloomily round him, 

He mounted the dizzying road, 
And the chasms and steeps of the headland 

Were slippery and wet, as he trod : 
Wild swept the wind of the ocean, 

Rolling the fog from afar, 
When near him a mule-bell came tinkling, 

Midway on the Paso del Mar. 



140 

•' Back ! " shouted Bernal, full fiercely, 

And " Back ! " shouted Pablo, in wrath, 
As his mule halted, startled and shrinking, 

On the perilous line of the path. 
The roar of devouring surges 

Came up from the breakers' hoarse war ; 
And "Back, or you perish ! " cried Bernal, 

" I turn not on Paso del Mar ! " 

The gray mule stood firm as the headland : 

He clutched at the jingling rein, 
When Pablo rose up in his saddle 

And smote till he dropped it again. 
A wild oath of passion swore Bernal, 

And brandished his dagger, still red, 
While fiercely stout Pablo leaned forward, 

And fought o'er his trusty mule's head. 

They fought till the black wall below them 

Shone red through the misty blast ; 
Stout Plablo then struck, leaning farther, 

The broad breast of Bernal at last. 
And, frenzied with pain, the swart herdsman 

Closed on him with terrible strength, 
And jerked him, despite of his struggles, 

Down from the saddle at length. 






141 

They grappled with desperate madness, 

On the slippery edge of the wall ; 
They swayed on the brink, and together 

Reeled out to the rush of the fall. 
A cry of the wildest death-anguish 

Rang faint through the mist afar, 
And the riderless mule went homeward 

From the fight of the Paso del Mar. 



142 






THE PINE FOREST OF MONTEREY. 

What point of Time, unchronicled, and dim 

As yon gray mist that canopies your heads, 

Took from the greedy wave and gave the sun 

Your dwelling-place, ye gaunt and hoary Pines ? 

When, from the barren bosoms of the hills, 

With scanty nurture, did ye slowly climb, 

Of these remote and latest-fashioned shores 

The first-horn forest ? Titans gnarled and rough, 

Such as from out subsiding Chaos grew 

To clothe the cold loins of the savage earth, 

What fresh commixture of the elements, 

What earliest thrill of life, the stubborn soil 

Slow-mastering, engendered ye to give 

The hills a mantle and the wind a voice? 

Along the shore ye lift your rugged arms, 

Blackened with many fires, and with hoarse chant — 



143 



Unlike the fibrous lute your co-mates touch 
In elder regions — fill the awful stops 
Between the crashing cataracts of the surf. 
Have ye no tongue, in all your sea of sound, 
To syllable the secret, — no still voice 
To give your airy myths a shadowy form, 
And make us of lost centuries of lore 
The rich inheritors ? 

The sea-winds pluck 
Your mossy beards, and gathering as they sweep, 
Vex your high heads, and with your sinewy arms 
Grapple and toil in vain. A deeper roar, 
Sullen and cold, and rousing into spells 
Of stormy volume, is your sole reply. 
Anchored in firm-set rock, ye ride the blast. 
And from the promontory's utmost verge 
Make signal o'er the waters. So ye stood, 
When, like a star, behind the lonely sea, 
Far shone the white speck of Grijalva's sail ; 
And when, through driving fog, the breaker's sound 
Frighted Otondo's men, your spicy breath 
Played as in welcome round their rusty helms. 
And backward from its staff shook out the folds 
Of Spain's emblazoned banner. 



144 



Ancient Pines, 
Ye bear no record of the years of man. 
Spring is your sole historian, — Spring, that paints 
These savage shores with hues of Paradise ; 
That decks your branches with a fresher green, 
And through your lonely, far canadas poirs 
Her floods of bloom, rivers of opal dye 
That wander down to lakes and widening seas 
Of blossom and of fragrance, — laughing Spring, 
That with her wanton blood refills your veins, 
And weds ye to your juicy youth again 
With a new ring, the while your rifted bark 
Drops odorous tears. Your knotty fibres yield 
To the light touch of her unfailing pen, 
As freely as the lupin's violet cup. 
Ye keep, close-locked, the memories of her stay, 
As in their shells the avelones keep 
Morn's rosy flush and moonlight's pearly glow. 
The wild north-west, that from Alaska sweeps, 
To drown Point Lobos with the icy scud 
And white sea-foam, may rend your boughs and leave 
Their blasted antlers tossing in the gale ; 
Your steadfast hearts are mailed against the shock, 
And on their annual tablets nought inscribe 
Of such rude visitation. Ye, are still 
The simple children of a guiltless soil, 



145 



And in your natures show the sturdy grain 

That passion cannot jar, nor force relax, 

Nor aught but sweet and kindly airs compel 

To gentler mood. No disappointed heart 

Has sighed its bitterness beneath your shade ; 

No angry spirit ever came to make 

Your silence its confessional ; no voice, 

Grown harsh in Crime's great market-place, the world, 

Tainted with blasphemy your evening hush 

And aromatic air. The deer alone, — 

The ambushed hunter that brings down the deer, — 

The fisher wandering on the misty shore 

To watch sea-lions wallow in the flood, — 

The shout, the sound of hoofs that chase and fly, 

When swift vaqueros, dashing through the herds, 

Ride down the angry bull, — perchance, the song 

Some Indian heired of long-forgotten sires, — 

Disturb your solemn chorus. 

Stately Pines, 
But few more years around the promontory 
Your chant will meet the thunders of the sea. 
No more, a barrier to the encroaching sand, 
Against the surf ye'll stretch defiant arm, 
Though with its onset and besieging shock 
Your firm knees tremble. Never more the wind 
10 



146 



Shall pipe shrill music through your mossy beards, 

Nor sunset's yellow blaze athwart your heads 

Crown all the hills with gold. Your race is past : 

The mystic cycle, whose unnoted birth 

Coeval was with yours, has run its sands, 

And other footsteps from these changing shores 

Frighten its haunting Spirit. Men will come 

To vex your quiet with the din of toil ; 

The smoky volumes of the forge will stain 

This pure, sweet air ; loud keels will ride the sea, 

Dashing its glittering sapphire into foam ; 

Through all her green canadas Spring will seek 

Her lavish blooms in vain, and clasping ye, 

O mournful Pines, within her glowing arms, 

Will weep soft rains to find ye fallen low. 

Fall, therefore, yielding to the fiat ! Fall, 

Ere the maturing soil, whose first dull life 

Fed your belated germs, be rent and seamed ! 

Fall, like the chiefs ye sheltered, stern, unbent, 

Your gray beards hiding memorable scars ! 

The winds will mourn ye, and the barren hills 

Whose breast ye clothed ; and when the pauses come 

Between the crashing cataracts of the surf, 

A funeral silence, terrible, profound, 

Will make sad answer to the listening sea. 



147 



EL CANELO. 



Now saddle El Canelo ! — the freshening wind of 

morn, 
Down in the flowery vega, is stirring through the 

corn ; 
The thin smoke of the ranches grows red with coming 

day, 
And the steed is fiercely stamping, in haste to be 

away. 



ii. 



My glossy-limbed Canelo, thy neck is curved in 

pride, 
Thy slender ears pricked forward, thy nostril straining 

wide ; 



148 



And as thy quick neigh greets me, and I catch thee by 

the mane, 
I'm off with the winds of morning — the chieftain of 

the plain ! 



in. 



I feel the swift air whirring, and see along our 

track, 
From the flinty-paved sierra, the sparks go streaming 

back ; 
And I clutch my rifle closer, as we sweep the dark 

defile, 
Where the red guerillas ambush for many a lonely 

mile. 



IV. 



They reach not El Canelo ; with the swiftness of a 

dream 
We've passed the bleak Nevada, and San Fernando's 

stream ; 
But where, on sweeping gallop, my bullet backward 

sped, 
The keen-eyed mountain vultures will wheel above the 

dead. 






149 



On ! on, my brave Canelo ! we've dashed the sand and 
snow 

From peaks upholding heaven, from deserts far be- 
low — 

We've thundered through the forest, while the crackling 
branches rang, 

And trooping elks, affrighted, from lair and covert 
sprang. 

VI. 

We've swum the swollen torrent — we've distanced in 
the race 

The baying wolves of Pinos, that panted with the 
chase ; 

And still thy mane streams backward, at every thrilling 
bound, 

And still thy measured hoof-stroke beats with its morn- 
ing sound ! 



VII. 



The seaward winds are wailing through Santa Barba* 

ra's pines, 
And like a sheathless sabre, the far Pacific shines ; 



150 



Hold to thy speed, my arrow ! at nightfall thou shalt 

lave 
Thy hot and smoking haunches beneath his silver 

wave ! 



VIII. 



My head upon thy shoulder, along the sloping 

sand 
We'll sleep as trusty brothers, from out the mountain 

land ; 
The pines will sound in answer to the surges on the 

shore, 
And in our dreams, Canelo, we'll make the journey 

o'er. 



]51 



THE EAGLE HUNTER. 

Storm and rain are on the mountains, 
And the falling torrents thunder, 
And the black and driving shadows 

Make a night along the plain : 
Now the herds are grouped for shelter, 
And the herdsmen wind their lassos, 
Towards the distant hacienda 

Speeding homeward through the rain. 

From the icy Cordilleras 
Crashing leap the avalanches, 
By the hands of mining waters 

Loosened from their lofty hold ; 
And the mountain sheep are scattered 
By the firs and larches falling, 
And the wild wolves howling gather 

In the caverns dark and cold. 



152 

On the lofty summit, beaten 
By the wintry sleet, I wander, 
For I seek the monarch eagle 

In his eyrie of the rock ; 
And I shout in exultation, 
When his gray wing on the darkness 
Of the cloud above me flashes, 

Wheeling downward to the shock ! 

From his wing I rob the plumage. 
And it crowns me like a chieftain ; 
At my belt his talons rattle, 

Like the scales of olden mail : 
Never win the Yuma hunters 
Such a trophy on their deserts, 
Or the fiery-eyed Apache 

In the Colorado's vale ! 

I pursue a nobler quarry, 

And my home is far above them, 

Where the cradles of the rivers 

Have been hollowed in the snow. 
And I drink their crystal sources, 
Where the Bravo and the Gila 
To their thousand miles of i ravel 

Plunging down the canons go ! 



153 

In the meeting of the thunders, 
When the solid crags are shivered, 
Firm and fearless and rejoicing 

On the lonely peaks I stand ; 
For my foot has learned the fleetness 
Of the ibex on the ridges, 
And my voice the stormy music 

Of the mighty Mountain Land. 






154 



THE SUMMER CAMP. 

Here slacken rein ; here let the dusty mules 
Unsaddled graze ! The shadows of the oaks 
Are on our brows, and through their knotted boles 
We see the blue round of the boundless plain 
Vanish in glimmering heat : these aged oaks, 
The island speck that beckoned us afar 
Over the burning level, — as we came, 
Spreading to shore and cape, and bays that ran 
To leafy headlands, balanced on the haze, 
Faint and receding as a cloud in air. 

The mules may roam unsaddled : we will lie 
Beneath the mighty trees, whose shade, like dew 
Poured from tne urns of Twilight, dries the sweat 
Of sunburnt brows, and on the heavy lid 
And heated eyeball sheds a balm, than sleep 






155 



Far sweeter. We have done with travel, — we 

Are weary now, who never dreamed of Rest, 

For until now did never Rest unbar 

Her palace-doors, nor until now our ears 

The silence drink, beyond all melodies 

Of all imagined sound, that wraps her realm. 

Here, where the desolating centuries 

Have left no mark ; where noises never came 

From the far world of battle and of toil ; 

Where God looks down and sends no thunderbolt 

To smite a human wrong, for all is good, 

She finds a refuge. We will dwell with her. 

No more of travel, where the flaming sword 
Of the great sun divides the heavens ; no more 
Of climbing over jutty steeps that swim 
In driving sea-mist, where the stunted tree 
Slants inland, mimicking the stress of winds 
When wind is none ; of plain and steaming marsh 
Where the dry bulrush crackles in the heat ; 
Of camps by starlight in the columned vault 
Of sycamores, and the red, dancing fires 
That build a leafy arch, efface and build, 
And sink at last, to let the stars peep through ; 
Of canons grown with pine and folded deep 
In golden mountain-sides ; of airy sweeps 



156 






Of mighty landscape, lying all alone 
Like some deserted world. They tempt no more. 
It is enough that such things were : too blest, 
O comrades mine, to lie in Summer's arms, 
Lodged in her Camp of Rest, we will not dream 
That they may vex us more. 

The sun goes down • 
The dun mules wander idly : motionless 
Beneath the stars, the heavy foliage lifts 
Its rich, round masses, silent as a cloud 
That sleeps at midday on a mountain peak. 
All through the long, delicious night no stir 
Is in the leaves ; spangled with broken gleams, 
Before the pining Moon — that fain would drop 
Into the lap of this deep quiet — swerve 
Eastward the shadows : Day comes on again. 
Where is the life we led ? Whither hath fled 
The turbulent stream that brought us hither? How, 
So full of sound, so lately dancing down 
The mountains, turbid, fretted into foam, — 
How has it slipped, with scarce a gurgling coil, 
Into this calm transparence, noise or wind 
Hath ruffled never ? Ages past, perchance, 
Such wild turmoil was ours, or did some Dream 
Malign, that last night nestled in the oak, 



157 



Whisper our ears, when not a star could see ? 
Give o'er the fruitless doubt : we will not waste 
One thought of rest, nor spill one radiant drop 
From the full goblet of this summer balm. 

Day after day the mellow sun slides o'er, 
Night after night the mellow moon, The clouds 
Are laid, enchanted : soft and bare, the heavens 
Fold to their breast the dozing Earth, that lies 
In languor of deep bliss. At times, a breath, 
Remnant of gales far off, forgotten now, 
Rustles the never-fading leaves, then drops 
Affrighted into silence. Near a slough 
Of dark, still water, in the early morn 
The shy coyotas prowl, or trooping elk 
From the close covert of the bulrush-fields 
Their dewy antlers toss : nor other sight, 
Save when the falcon, poised on wheeling wings, 
His bright eye on the burrowing coney, cuts 
His arrowy plunge. Along the distant trail, 
Dim with the heat, sometimes the miners go 
Bearded and rough, the swart Sonorians drive 
Their laden asses, or vaqueros whirl 
The lasso's coil and carol many a song, 
Native to Spanish hills. As when we lie 
On the soft brink of Sleep, not pillowed quite 



158 



To blest forgetfulness, some dim array 
Of masking forms in long procession comes, 
A sweet disturbance to the poppied sense, 
That will not cease, but gently holds it back 
From slumber's haven, so their figures pass, 
With such disturbance cloud the blessed calm, 
And hold our beings, ready to slip forth 
O'er unmolested seas, still rocking near 
The coasts of Action. 

Other dreams are ours, 
Of shocks that were, or seemed ; whereof our souls 
Feel the subsiding lapse, as feels the sand 
Of tropic island-shores the dying pulse 
Of storms that racked the Northern sea. My Soul, 
I do believe that thou hast toiled and striven, 
And hoped and suffered wrong. I do believe 
Great aims were thine, deep loves and fiery hates, 
And though I may have lain a thousand years 
Beneath these Oaks, the baffled trust of Youth, 
Thy first keen sorrow, brings a gentle pang 
To temper joy. Nor will the joy I drank 
To wild intoxication, quit my heart : 
It was no dream that still has power to droop 
The soft-suffusing lid, and lift desire 
Beyond this rapt repose. No dream, dear love ! 
For thou art with me in our Camp of Pence. 



159 



O Friend, whose history is writ in deeds 

That make your life a marvel, come no gleams 

Of past adventure, echoes of old storms, 

And Battle's tingling hum of flying shot, 

To touch your easy blood and tempt you o'er 

The round of yon blue plain ? Or have they lost, 

Heroic days, the virtue which the heart 

That did their hest rejoicing, proved so high ? 

Back through the long, long cycles of our rest 

Your memory travels : through this hush you hear 

The Gila's dashing, feel the yawning jaws 

Of black volcanic gorges close you in 

On waste and awful tracts of wilderness, 

Which other than the eagle's ciy, or bleat 

Of mountain-goat, hear not : the scorching sand 

Eddies around the tracks your fainting mules 

Leave in the desert : thorn and cactus pierce 

Your bleeding limbs, and stiff with raging thirst 

Your tongue forgets its office. Leave untried 

That cruel trail, and leave the wintry hills 

And leave the tossing sea ! The Summer here 

Builds us a tent of everlasting calm. 

How shall we wholly sink our lives in thee, 
Three-blessed Deep ? O many-natured Soul, 
Chameleon-like, that, steeped in every phase 



160 



Of wide existence, tak'st the hue of each, 
Here with the silent Oaks and azure Air 
Incorporate grow ! Here loosen one by one 
Thy vexing memories, burdens of the Past, 
Till all unrest be laid, and strong Desire 
Sleeps on his nerveless arm. Content to find 
In liberal Peace thy being's high result 
And crown of aspiration, gather all 
The dreams of sense, the reachings of the mind 
For ampler issues and dominion vain, 
To fold them on her bosom, happier there 
Than in exultant action : as a child 
Forgets his meadow butterflies and flowers, 
Upon his mother's breast. 

It may not be. 
Not in this Camp, in these enchanted Trees, 
But in ourselves, must lodge the calm we seek, 
Ere we can fix it here. We cannot take 
From outward nature power to snap the curse 
Which clothed our birth ; and though 'twere easier 
This hour to die than yield the blessed cup 
Wherefrom our hearts divinest comfort draw, 
It clothes us yet, and yet shall drive us forth 
To breast the world. Then come : we will not bide 
To tempt a ruin to this paradise, 






161 



Fulfilling Destiny. A might} r wind 
Would gather on the plain, a cloud arise 
To blot the sky, with thunder in its heart, 
And the black column of the whirlwind spin 
Out of the cloud, straight downward to this grove, 
Take by their heads the shuddering trees, and wrench 
With fearful clamor, limb from limb, till Rest 
Should flee forever. Rather set at once 
Our faces toward the noisy world again, 
And gird our loins for action. Let us go ! 
11 



162 






THE BISON TRACK 



Strike the tent ! the sun has risen ; not a vapor streaks 

the dawn, 
And the frosted prairie brightens to the westward, far 

and wan : 
Prime afresh the trusty rifle — sharpen weil the hunting 

spear — 
For the frozen sod is trembling, and a noise of hoofs [ 

hear ! 



II. 



Fiercely stamp the tethered horses, as they snufT the 

morning's fire ; 
Their impatient heads are tossing, and they neigh with 

keen desire. 



163 



Strike the tent ! the saddles wait us — let the bridle- 
reins be slack, 

For the prairie's distant thunder has betrayed the bi- 
son's track. 



in. 



See ! a dusky line approaches : hark, the onward-sur- 
ging roar, 

Like the din of wintry breakers on a sounding wall of 
shore ! 

Dust and sand behind them whirling, snort the foremost 
of the van, 

And their stubborn horns are clashing through the 
crowded caravan. 



IV. 



Now the storm is down upon us : let the maddened 

horses go ! 
We shall ride the living whirlwind, though a hundred 

leagues it blow ! 
Though the cloudy manes should thicken, and the red 

eyes' angry glare 
Lighten round us as we gallop through the sand and 

rushing air ! 



164 



Myriad hoofs will scar the prairie, in our wild, resist- 
less race, 

And a sound, like mighty waters, thunder down the 
desert space : 

Yet the rein may not be tightened, nor the rider's eye 
look back — 

Death to him whose speed should slacken, on the mad- 
dened bison's track! 

VI. 

Now the trampling herds are threaded, and the chase 

is close and warm 
For the giant bull that gallops in the edges of the storm : 
Swiftly hurl the whizzing lasso — swing your rifles as 

we run : 
See ! the dust is red behind him — shout, my comrades, 

he is won ! 

VII. 



Look not on him as he staggers — 'tis the last shot he 

will need ! 
More shall fall, among his fellows, ere we run the mad 

stampede — 



165 



Ere we stem the brinded breakers, while the wolves, a 

hungry pack, 
Howl around each grim-eyed carcass, on the bloody 

Bison Track ! 



RHYMES OF TRAVEL, AND EARLY POEMS, 



(167) 



169 



THE TOMB OF CHARLEMAGNE. 

I stood in that cathedral old, the work of kingly 
power, 

That from the clustered roofs of Aix lifts up its mould- 
ering tower, 

And, like a legend strange and rude, speaks of an ear- 
lier day — 

Of saint and knight, the tourney's pomp and the Min- 
nesinger's lay ! 

Above me rose the pillared dome, with many a statue 
grim, 

And through the chancel-oriel came a splendor soft 
and dim, 

Till dusky shrine and painting old glowed in the lustre 
wan : 

Below me was a marble slab — the Tomb of Charle- 
magne. 



170 



A burst of organ-music rang so grandly, sadly 

slow, 
It seemed a requiem thundered o'er the dead who slept 

below ; 
And with the sound came thronging round the stern 

men of that time, 
When best was he who bravest fought, and cowardice 

was crime. 

I thought upon the day when he, whose dust I stood 

upon, 
Ruled with a monarch's boundless right the kingdoms 

he had won — 
When rose the broad Alps in his realm, and roared the 

Baltic's wave ; 
And now — the lowest serf might stand, unheeded, on 

his grave. 

And ruthless hands despoiled his dust, attired in regal 

pride, 
The crown upon his crumbled brows, and Joyeuse by 

his side — 
Whose rusted blade, at Ronjeval, flamed in the hero's 

hand 
In answer to the silver horn of the Paladin, Roland. 



171 



1 stood on that neglected stone, thrilled with the glorU 

ous sound, 
While bowed at many a holier shrine the worshippers 

around — 
And through the cloud c-f incense-smoke burned many 

a taper dim, 
And priestly stoles went sweeping by — I could but 

think of him ! 

1 saw the boy with yellow locks, crowned at St. Deny's 

shrine ; 
The emperor in his purple cloak, the lord of all the 

Rhine ; 
The conqueror of a thousand foes, in battle stern and 

hard ; 
The widowed mourner at thy tomb, O fairest Hilde- 

garde ! 

Long pealed the music of the choir through chancel- 
arch and nave, 

As, lost in those old memories, I stood upon his grave ; 

And when the morning anthem ceased, and solemn 
mass began, 

I left that minster gray and old — the Tomb of Charle- 
magne. 
Aix-la.-Chapi;lle, 1844. 



172 






THE WAYSIDE DREAM. 

The deep and lordly Danube 

Goes winding far below ; 
I see the white-walled hamlets 

Amid his vineyards glow, 
And southward, through the ether, shine 

The Styrian hills of snow. 

O'er many a league of landscape 
Sleeps the warm haze of noon ; 

The wooing winds come freighted 
With messages of June, 

And down among the corn and flowers 
I hear the water's tune. 

The meadow-lark is singing, 
As if it still were morn ; 



173 

Within the dark pine-forest 

The hunter winds his horn, 
And the cuckoo's shy, complaining note 

Mocks the maidens in the corn. 

I watch the cloud -armada 

Go sailing up the sky, 
Lulled by the murmuring mountain grass 

Upon whose bed I lie, 
And the faint sound of noonday chimes 

That in the distance die. 

A warm and drowsy sweetness 

Is stealing o'er my brain ; 
I see no more the Danube 

Sweep through his royal plain ; 
I hear no more the peasant girls 

Singinsr amid the grain. 

Soft, silvery wings, a moment 
Have swept across my brow : 

Again I hear the water, 

But its voice is sweeter now, 

And the mocking-bird and oriole 
Are singing on the bough ! 



174 

The elm and linden branches 
Droop close and dark o'erhead, 

And the foaming forest brooklet 
Leaps down its rocky bed : 

Be still, my heart ! the seas are passed — 
The paths of home I tread ! 

The showers of creamy blossoms 

Are on the linden spray, 
And down the clover meadow 

They heap the scented hay, 
And glad winds toss the forest leaves, 

All the bright summer day. 

Old playmates ! bid me welcome 

Amid your brother-band ; 
Give me the old affection — 

The glowing grasp of hand ! 
I seek no more the realms of old — 

Here is my Fatherland. 

Come hither, gentle maiden, 

Who weep'st in tender joy ! 
The rapture of thy presence 

Repays the world's annoy, 









175 

And calms the wild and ardent heart 
Which warms the wandering boy. 

In many a mountain fastness, 

By many a river's foam, 
And through the gorgeous cities, 

'Twas loneliness to roam ; 
For the sweetest music in my heart 

Was the olden songs of home. 

Ah, glen and grove are vanished, 

And friends have faded now ! 
The balmy Styrian breezes 

Are blowing on my brow, 
And sounds again the cuckoo's call 

From the forest's inmost bough. 

Fled is that happy vision — 

The gates of slumber fold ; 
I rise and journey onward 

Through valleys green and old, 
Where the far, white Alps announce the morn, 

And keep the sunset's gold. 
UprER Austria, 1845. 



176 



STEYERMARK, 

In Steyermark — green Steyermark, 
The fields are bright and the forests dark — 
Bright with the maids that bind the sheaves, 
Dark with the arches of whispering leaves ! 
Voices and streams and sweet bells chime 
Over the land, in the harvest-time, 
And the blithest songs of the finch and lark 
Are heard in the orchards of Steyermark. 



In Steyermark — old Steyermark, 

The mountain summits are white and stark; 

The rough winds furrow their trackless snow, 

But the mirrors of crystal are smooth below ; 

The stormy Danube clasps the wave 

That downward sweeps with the Drave and Save, 

And the Euxine is whitened with many a bark, 

Freighted with ores of Steyermark ! 



177 



In Steyermark — rough Steyermark, 
The anvils ring from dawn till dark ; 
The molten streams of the furnace glare, 
Blurring with crimson the midnight air ; 
The lusty voices of forgemen chord, 
Chanting the ballad of Siegfried's Sword, 
While the hammers swung by their arms so stark 
Strike to the music of Steyermark ! 

In Steyermark — dear Steyermark, 
Each heart is light as the morning lark : 
There men are framed in the manly mould 
Of their stalwart sires, of the times of old, 
And the sunny blue of the Styrian sky 
Grows soft in the timid maiden's eye, 
When love descends with the twilight dark, 
In the beechen groves of Steyermark. 
12 



178 



TO A BAVARIAN GIRL. 

Thou, Bavaria's brown-eyed daughter, 

Art a shape of joy, 
Standing by the Isar's water 

With thy brother-boy ; 
In thy dream, with idle fingers 

Threading through his curls, 
On thy cheek the sun's kiss lingers, 

Rosiest of girls ! 

Woods of glossy oak are ringing 

With the echoes bland, 
While thy generous voice is singing 

Songs of Fatherland — 
Songs, that by the Danube's river 

Sound on hills of vine, 
And where waves in green light quiver, 

Down the rushing Rhine. 



179 

Life, with all its hues and changes, 

To thy heart doth lie 
Like those dreamy Alpine ranges 

In the southern sky ; 
Where in haze the clefts are hidden, 

Which the foot should fear, 
And the crags that fall unbidden 

Startle not the ear. 

Where the village maidens gather 

At the fountain's brim, 
Or in sunny harvest-weather, 

With the reapers trim ; 
Where the autumn fires are burning 

On the vintage-hills ; 
Where the mossy wheels are turning 

In the ancient mills ; 

Where from ruined robber-towers 

Hangs the ivy's hair, 
And the crimson foxbell flowers 

On the crumbling stair : — 
Every where, without thy presence, 

Would the sunshine fail, 
Fairest of the maiden peasants ! 

Flower of Isar's vale ! 



Munich, 1845. 



180 



IN ITALY. 

Dear Lillian, all I wished is won ! 
I sit beneath Italia's sun, 
Where olive orchards gleam and quiver 
Along the banks of Arno's river. 

Through laurel leaves, the dim green light 
Falls on my forehead as I. write, 
And the sweet chimes of vesper, ringing, 
Blend with the contadina's singing. 

Rich is the soil with Fancy's gold ; 
The stirring memories of old 
Rise thronging in my haunted vision, 
And wake my spirit's young ambition. 



181 

But as the radiant sunsets close 
Above Val d'Arno's bowers of rose, 
My soul forgets the olden glory, 
And deems our love a dearer story. 

Thy words, in Memory's ear, outchime 
The music of the Tuscan rhyme ; 
Thou standest here — the gentle-hearted — 
Amid the shades of bards departed. 

I see before thee fade away 

Their garlands of immortal bay, 

And turn from Petrarch's passion- glances 

To my own dearer heart-romances. 

Sad is the opal glow that fires 
The midnight of the cypress spires, 
And cold the scented wind that closes 
The heart of bright Etruscan roses. 

A single thought of thee effaced 
The fair Italian dream I chased ; 
For the true clime of song and sun 
Lies in the heart which mine hath won ! 
Florence, 1845. 



182 



THE STATUE IN THE SNOW. 

Numb and chill the Savoyard wandered 
By the banks of frozen Seine, 

Oft, to cheer his sinking spirit, 
Singing low some mountain strain. 

But, beside the wintry river, 
Rose the songs of green Savoy 

Sadder than on Alpine summits, 
Sung by many a shepherd-boy. 

From the bleak and distant Jura 
Swept the snowy whirlwind down, 

Flinging wide his shifting mantle 
Over slope and meadow brown. 



183 

Like a corpse the silent landscape 
Lay all stark and icy there, 

And a chill and ghostly terror 
Seemed to load the leaden air. 



Still that shivering boy went forward, 
Though his heart within him died, 

When the dreary night was closing 
Dull around the desert wide. 



Through the desolate northern twilight, 
To his homesick pining, rose 

Visions of the flashing glaciers, 
Lifted in sublime repose. 

Horns of Alp-herds rang in welcome, 
And his mother kissed her boy — 

But away his heart was hurried 
From the vales of dear Savoy ! 

For, amid the sinking darkness, 
Colder, chillier, blew the snows, 

Till but faint and moaning whispers 
From his stiffening lips arose. 



184 

Then, beside the pathway kneeling, 
Folded he his freezing hands, 

While the blinding snows were drifted 
Like the desert's lifted sands 



As in many an old cathedral, 

Curtained round with solemn gloom, 

One may see a marble cherub 
Kneeling; on a marble tomb. 



With his face to Heaven upturning, 
For the dead he seems to pray, 

While the organ o'er him thunders, 
And the incense curls away. 

Thus the Savoyard, pale and lifeless, 

Knelt in Night's cathedral vast, 
When the stars at midnight sparkled 
In the pauses of the blast. 
Paris, 1846. 



185 



THE DEAREST IMAGE. 



I've wandered through the golden lands 

Where Art and Beauty blended shine — 

« 

Where features limned by painters' hands 
Beam from the canvas made divine, 

And many a god in marble stands, 
With soul in every breathing line ; 

And forms the world has treasured long 

Within me touched the source of Song. 



ii. 



Like madness o'er the spirit came 
The boundless rapture they inspired, 

As with my feelings all on flame 

I worshipped what the world admired, 



186 

While flashes from those orbs of fame 

The soul with mutual ardor fired, 
Till Beauty's smile and Glory's star 
Seemed to its grasp no more afar. 



in. 



Yet, brighter than those radiant dreams 
Which won renown that never dies — 

Where more than mortal beauty beams 
In sibyls' lips and angels' eyes — 

One image, like the moonlight, seems 
Between them and my heart to rise, 

And in its brighter, dearer ray, 

The stars of Genius fade away. 
London, 1846 



187 



A BACCHIC ODE. 

Wine — bring wine ! 

Let the crystal beaker flame and shine, 

Brimming o'er with the draught divine ! 

The crimson glow 

Of the lifted cup on my forehead throw, 

Like the sunset's flush on a field of snow. 

I burn to lave 

My thirsty lip in the ruddy wave ; 

Freedom bringeth the wine so brave ! 

The world is cold : 

Sorrow and pain have gloomy hold, 

Chilling the bosom warm and bold. 



188 

Doubts and fears 

Veil the shine of my morning years — 

My life's lone rainbow springs from tears. 

But Eden-gleams 

Visit my soul in immortal dreams, 

When the wave of the goblet burns and beams. 

Not from the Rhine, 

Not from fields of Burgundian vine, 

Bring me the bright Olympian wine ! 

Not with a ray 

Born where the winds of Shiraz play, 

Or the fiery blood of the ripe Tokay. 

Not where the glee 

Of Falernian vintage echoes free, 

Or the Chian gardens gem the sea. 

But wine — bring wine, 

Royally flushed with its growth divine, 

In the crystal depth of my soul to shine ! 



189 



Whose glow was caught 

From the warmth which Fancy's summer brought 

To the vintage-fields in the Land of Thought. 

Rich and free 

To my thirsting soul will the goblet be, 

Poured by the Hebe, Poesy. 



190 



A FUNERAL THOUGHT. 



When the pale Genius, to whose hollow tramp 
Echo the startled chambers of the soul, 

Waves his inverted torch o'er that pale camp 
Where the archangel's final trumpets roll, 

I would not meet him in the chamber dim, 
Hushed, and pervaded with a nameless fear, 

When the breath nutters and the senses swim, 
And the dread hour is near. 



Though Love's dear arms might clasp me fondly then 

As if to keep the Summoner at bay, 
And woman's woe and the calm grief of men 

Hallow at last the chill, unbrcathing clay — 



191 



These are Earth's fetters, and the soul would shrink, 

Thus bound, from Darkness and the dread Unknown, 
Stretching its arms from Death's eternal brink, 
Which it must dare alone. 



in. 



But in the awful silence of the sky, 

Upon some mountain summit, yet untrod, 

Through the blue ether would I climb, to die 
Afar from mortals and alone with God ! 

To the pure keeping of the stainless air 

Would I resign my faint and fluttering breath, 

And with the rapture of an answered prayer 
Receive the kiss of Death. 



IV. 



Then to the elements my frame would turn ; 

No worms should riot on my coffined clay, 
But the cold limbs, from that sepulchral urn, 

In the slow storms of ages waste away. 



192 



Loud winds and thunder's diapason high 

Should be my requiem through the coming time, 
And the white summit, fading in the sky, 
My monument sublime. 



193 



THE ANGEL OF THE SOUL. 

Una Stella, una notte, ed una croce. — Bisazza. 

Silence hath conquered thee, imperial Night ! 
Thou sitt'st alone within her void, cold halls, 
Thy solemn brow uplifted, and thy soul 
Paining the space with dumb and yearning thought. 
The dreary winds are eddying round thy form, 
Following the stealthy hours, that wake no stir 
In the hushed velvet of thy mantle's fold. 
Thy thoughts take being : down the dusky aisles 
Glide shapes of good, enticing ghosts of guilt, 
And dreams of maddening beauty — hopes, that shine 
To darken, and in cloudy height sublime, 
The spectral march of some approaching doom. 
Nor these alone, O Mother of the world ! 
People thy chambers, echoless and vast : 
13 



194 



Their dewy freshness like ambrosia cools 

Life's fever-thirst, and to the fainting soul 

Their porphyry walls are touched with light, and gleams 

Of shining wonder dance along- the void, 

Like those processions which the traveller's torch 

Wakes from the darkness of three thousand years, 

In rock-hewn sepulchres of Theban kings. 

Prophets, whose brows of pale, unearthly glow 

Reflect the twilight of celestial dawns, 

And bards, transfigured in immortal song, 

Like eager children, kneeling at thy feet, 

Unclasp the awful volume of thy lore. 

My soul explores thy far, mysterious realms, 

Beyond this being's circumscribed domain, 

Touches the threshold of supremer life, 

And calls through all the spangled deeps of heaven 

Its guardian angel, as an orphan calls 

His only brother, that in childhood died : 

Thy wings waved white across my cradled dreams, 

Lost Angel of the Soul ! Thy presence led 

The babe's faint gropings through the glimmering dark 

And into Being's conscious dawn. Thy hand 

Held mine in childhood, and thy cherub's cheek 

Caressed, like some familiar playmate's, mine. 






195 



Up to that boundary, whence the heart leaps forth 
To life, like some young torrent, when the n : ns 
Pour dark and full upon the cloudy hills, 
Thy shining steps kept even pace with mine. 
Be with me now ! O, in the starry hush 
Of holy night, restore to me again 
The innocence whose loss was loss of thee ! 
Through the warm gush of unexpected tears 
Let me behold thine eyes divine, as stars 
Swim through the twilight vapors of the sea I 

Not yet hast thou forsaken me. Ihe prayer 

Whose crowning fervor lifts my nature up 

Midway to God, may still evoke thy form. 

Thou hast returned, what time the midnight dev 

Clung clamp upon my brow, and the broad fields 

Stretched far and dim beneath the ghostly moon ; 

When the dark, awful woods were silent near, 

And with imploring hands towards the stars 

Clasped in mute yearning, I have questioned Heaven 

For the lost language of the book of Life. 

In the last undulating, dying strains 

Of tender music, I have heard thy voice ; 

And thou hast cried amid the stormy rush 

Of grand orchestral triumph, calling me 

Till every chord became a pang, and calling still 



196 

Till I could bear no more. I feel the light, 
Which is thine atmosphere, around my soul, 
When a great sorrow gulfs it from the world. 

Come back ! come back ! my heart grows faint, to kno\t 

How thy withdrawing radiance leaves more dim 

The twilight borders of the night of Earth. 

Now, when the bitter truth is learned ; when all 

That seemed so high and good, but mocks its seeming ; 

When the warm dreams of youth come shivering back, 

In the cold chambers of the heart to die ; 

When, with the wrestling years, familiar grows 

The merciless hand of Pain, desert me not ! 

Come with the true heart of the faithful Night, 

When I have thrown aside the masking garb 

Of the deceitful Day, and lie at rest 

On her consoling bosom ! From the founts 

Of thine exhaustlcss light, make clear the road 

Through toil and darkness, into God's repose ! 






197 



AN HOUR. 



I've left the keen, cold winds to blow 

Around the summits bare ; 
My sunny pathway to the sea 

Leads downward, green and fair, 
Where leaves and blossoms toss and glow 

Amid the southern air. 



The fern its fragrant plumage droops 
O'er mosses crisp and gray, 

Where on the shaded crags I sit, 
Beside the cataract's spray, 

And watch the far-off, shining sails 
Go down the gleaming bay. 



198 

I've left the wintry winds of life 

On barren hearts to blow — 
The anguish and the gnawing care, 

The torture and the woe ! 
I sail the sunny sea of dreams 

Where'er its winds may blow. 

Away ! away ! I hear the horn 

Among the hills of Spain : 
The old, chivalric glory fires 

Her warrior hearts again : 
Ho ! how their banners light the morn 

Along Granada's plain ! 

I hear the hymns of holy faith 

The red Crusaders sang, 
And the silver horn of Ron9eval, 

That o'er the tecbir rang, 
When prince and kaiser through the fray 

To the dying paladin sprang. 

A beam of burning light I hold, 
My good Damascus brand, 



199 

And the jet-black charger that I ride 
Was foaled in the Arab land, 

And a hundred horsemen, mailed in steel, 
Follow at my command ! 

Through royal cities goes our march ; 

The minster-bells are rung ; 
The trumpets give a lordly peal, 

The battle-flags are swung, 
And lips of lovely ladies praise 

The chieftain, brave and young. 

And now, in soft Provencal bowers, 

A minstrel-knight am I : 
A gentle bosom on my own 

Throbs back its ecstasy ; 
A cheek, as fair as the almond flowers, 

Thrills to my lip's reply. 

I tread the fanes of wondrous Rome, 

Crowned with immortal bay, 
And myriads crowd the Capitol 

To hear my lofty lay, 
While, sounding o'er the Tiber's foam, 

Their shoutings peal away. 



200 

O, triumph such as this were worth 

The Poet's doom of pain, 
Whose hours are brazen on the earth, 

But golden in the brain : 
I close the starry Gate of Dreams, 

And walk the dust again. 



201 



THE NORSEMAN'S RIDE. 

The frosty fires of Northern starlight 

Gleamed on the glittering snow, 
And through the forest's frozen branches 

The shrieking winds did blow ; 
A floor of blue, translucent marble 

Kept ocean's pulses still, 
When, in the depth of dreary midnight, 

Opened the burial hill. 

Then while a low and creeping shudder 

Thrilled upward through the ground, 
The Norseman came, as armed for battle, 

In silence from his mound : 
He,' who was mourned in solemn sorrow 

By many a swordsman bold, 
And harps that wailed along the ocean, 

Struck by the Skalds of old. 



202 

Sudden, a swift and silver shadow 

Rushed up from out the gloom — 
A horse that stamped with hoof impatient, 

Yet noiseless, on the tomb. 
1 Ha, Surtur ! let me hear thy tramping, 

Thou noblest Northern steed, 
Whose neigh along the stormy headlands 

Bade the bold Viking heed ! " 

He mounted : like a north-light streaking 

The sky with flaming bars, 
They, on the winds so wildly shrieking, 

Shot up before the stars. 
" Is this thy mane, my fearless Surtur, 

That streams against my breast ? 
Is this thy neck, that curve of moonlight, 

Which Helva's hand caressed ? 

No misty breathing strains thy nostril, 

Thine eye shines blue and cold, 
Yet, mounting up our airy pathway, 

I see thy hoofs of gold ! 
Not lighter o'er the springing rainbow 

Walhalla's gods repair, 
Than we, in sweeping journey over 

The bending bridge of air. 



203 

w; Fur, far around, star-gleams are sparkling 

Amid the twilight space ; 
And Earth, that lay so cold and darkling, 

Has veiled her dusky face. 
Are those the Nornes that beckon onward 

To seats at Odin's board, 
Where nightly by the hands of heroes 

The foaming mead is poured ? 

" 'Tis Skuld ! her star-eye speaks the glory 

That waits the warrior's soul, 
When on its hinge of music opens 

The gateway of the Pole — 
When Odin's warder leads the here 

To banquets never done, 
And Freya's eyes outshine in summer 

The ever-risen sun. 

" On ! on ! the Northern lights are streaming 

In brightness like the morn, 
And pealing far amid the vastness, 

I hear the Gjallarhorn : 
The heart of starry space is throbbing 

With songs of minstrels old, 
And now, on high Walhalla's portal, 

Gleam Surtur's hoofs of gold ! " 



204 



THE VOICE OF THE FIRE. 

They sat by the hearth-stone, broad and bright, 
Whose burning brands threw a cheerful light 
On the frosty calm of the winter's night. 

Her tresses soft to his lips were pressed, 
Her head was laid on his happy breast, 
And a tender silence their love expressed : 

And ever a gentle murmur came 

From the clear, bright heart of the wavering flame, 

Like the first sweet call of the dearest name. 

He kissed on the warm, white brow, 

And told her in fonder words, the vow 

He had whispered under the moonlit bough ; 



205 

And o'er them a steady radiance came 

From the shining heart of the mounting flame, 

Like the love that burnetii forever the same. 

The maiden smiled through her soft brown eyes, 
As he led her forward to sunnier skies, 
Whose cloudless light on the Future lies ; 

And a moment paused the laughing flame, 
And it listened a while, and then there came 
A cheery burst from its sparkling frame. 

In the home he pictured, the home so blest, 
Their souls should sit in a calmer rest, 
Like woodland birds in their shaded nest. 

There slept, foreshadowed, the bliss to be, 
When a tenderer life that home should see, 
In the wingless cherub that climbed his knee. 

And the flame went on with its flickering song, 
And beckoned and laughed to the lovers long, 
Who sat in its radiance, red and strong. 



206 

And ever its burden seemed to be 
The mingled voices of household glee, 
Like the gush of winds in a mountain tree. 

Then broke and fell a glimmering brand 
To the cold, dead ashes it fed and fanned, 
And its last gleam waved like a warning hand. 

They did not speak, for there came a fear, 
As a spirit of evil were wandering near, 
A menace of danger to something dear. 

And, hovering over its smouldering bed, 

A feebler pinion the flame outspread, 

And a paler light through the chamber shed. 

He clasped the maid in a fonder thrall : 

" We shall love each other, whatever befall, 

And the Merciful Father is over all " 









207 



A REQUIEM IN THE NORTH. 

Speed swifter, Night! — wild Northern Night, 

Whose feet the Arctic islands know, 
When stiffening breakers, snarp and white, 

Gird the complaining shores of snow ! 
Send all thy winds to sweep the wold, 

And howl in mountain passes far, 
And hang thy banners, red and cold, 

Against the shield of every star ! 

For what have I to do with morn, 

Or summer's glory in the vales — 
With the blithe ring of forest-horn, 

Or beckoning gleam of snowy sails ? 
Art thou not gone, in whose blue eye 

The fleeting summer dawned to me ? 
Gone, like the echo of a sigh 

Beside the loud, resounding sea! 



208 



0, brief that time of song and flowers, 

Which blessed, through thee, the Northern Land 
I pine amid its leafless bowers, 

And on the bleak and lonely strand. 
The forest wails the starry bloom 

Which yet shall light its dusky floor, 
But down my spirit's paths of gloom 

Thy love shall blossom nevermore. 

And nevermore shall battling pines 

Their solemn triumph sound for me ; 
Nor morning gild the mountain lines, 

Nor sunset flush the hoary sea ; 
But Night and Winter fill the sky, 

And load with frost the shivering air, 
Till every gust that hurries by 

Repeats the talc of my despair. 

The leaden twilight, cold and long, 

Is slowly settling o'er the wave ; 
No wandering blast awakes a song 

In naked boughs, above thy grave. 
The frozen air is still and dark ; 

The numb earth lies in icy rest ; 
And all is dead save this one spark 

Of burning grief, within my breast. 



209 

Life's darkened orb shall wheel no more 

'To Love's rejoicing summer back : 
My spirit walks a wintry shore, 

With not a star to cheer its track. 
Speed swifter, Night ! thy gloom and frost 

Are free to spoil and ravage here ; 
\ riis last wild requiem for the lost 

i pour in thy unheeding ear ! 
14 



210 



A VOICE FROM PIEDMONT. 



Aveuge, Lord, Thy slaughtered saints, whose bones 
Lie scattered on the Alpine Mountains cold. 

Milton — Sonnet on the Massacres in Piedmont. 



Bend from that Heaven, whose visioned glories gave 
Thou blind old Bard, the splendor of thy song, 

And teach the godlike words which mortals crave, 
To speak, exulting, o'er the fallen Wrong ! 

For lo ! the Avenger of that hour of blood 

Has heard at last thy summons, stern and grand ; 

Has freed the children of the slaughtered brood, 
In the cold Alpine land ! 



ii. 



O ! at the tardy word, whose thunder broke 
The chains of ages from that suffering flock, 



211 



Methinks the mountain's giant soul awoke, 
And thrilled beneath the eternal ribs of rock. 

The ancient glaciers brightened in the sky ; 
Beneath them, shouting, burst the joyous rills, 

And the white Alps of Piedmont made reply 
Unto the Vaudois hills ! 



in. 



And far below, in lonely pasture-vales, 

The Waldense shepherd knelt upon the sod, 

While chapel-bells chimed on the mountain gales, 
And every chalet gave its hymn to God. 

Matron, and sire, and sweet-voiced peasant maid, 
And the strong hunter from the steeps of snow, 

Gave thanks to Him, whose help their fathers prayed, 
Through years of blood and woe. 



IV. 



Build now the sepulchres of martyrs old : 
Gather the scattered bones from every glen, 

Where the red waves of pitiless slaughter rolled, 
When fell those brave and steadfast-hearted men ! 



212 



Piedmont is free ! and brightening with the years, 
Shall Freedom's sun upon her mountains shine ; 
While her glad children say, with grateful tears, 
" The glory, Lord, be Thine ! " 
1848. 






213 



THE CONTINENTS. 

1 ead a vision in that solemn hour, 

Last of the year sublime, 
Whose wave sweeps downward, with its dying powei 

"Rippling the shores of Time. 
On the bleak margin of that hoary sea 

My spirit stood alone, 
Watching the gleams of phantom History, 

Which through the darkness shone. 

Then, when the bell of midnight ghostly hands 

Tolled for the dead year's doom, 
I saw the spirits of Earth's ancient lands 

Stand up amid the gloom ! 
The crowned deities, whose reign began 

In the forgotten Past, 
When first the fresh world gave to sovereign Man 

Her empires green and vast. 



214 

First queenly Asia, from the fallen thrones 

Of twice three thousand years, 
Came with the woe a grieving goddess owns, 

Who longs for mortal tears. 
The dust of ruin to her mantle clung 

And dimmed her crown of gold, 
While the majestic sorrows of her tongue 

From Tyre to Indus rolled : 

" Mourn with me, sisters, in my realm of woe, 

Whose only glory streams 
From its lost childhood, like the arctic glow 

Which sunless Winter dreams ! 
In the red desert moulders Babylon, 

And the wild serpent's hiss 
Echoes in Petra's palaces of stone, 

And waste Persepolis. 

" Gone are the deities that ruled enshrined 

In Elephanta's caves, 
And Brahma's wailings fill the fragrant wind 

That ripples Ganges' waves : 
The ancient gods amid their temples fall, 

And shapes of some near doom, 
Trembling and waving on the Future's wall, 

More fearful make my gloom ! " 






215 



Then, from her seat, amid the palms embowered 

That shade the lion-land, 
Swart Africa in dusky aspect towered, 

The fetters on her hand ! 
Backward she saw, from out her drear eclipse, 

The mighty Theban years, 
And the deep anguish of her mournful lips 

Interpreted her tears. 

" Woe for my children, whom your gyves have bound 

Through centuries of toil ; 
The bitter waitings of whose bondage sound 

From many an alien soil ! 
Leave me but free, though the eternal sand 

Be all my kingdom now — 
Though- the rude splendors of barbaric land 

But mock my crownless brow ! " 

There was a sound, like sudden trumpets blown, 

A ringing, as of arms, 
When Europe rose, a stately amazon, 

Stern in her mailed charms. 
She brooded long beneath the weary bars 

That chafed her soul of flame, 
And like a seer, who reads the awful stars, 

Her words prophetic came : 



216 



" I hear new sounds along the ancient shore, 

Whose dull old monotone 
Of tides, that broke on many a system hoar, 

Moaned through the ages lone : 
I see a gleaming, like the crimson morn 

Beneath a stormy sky, 
And warning throes, which long my breast has borne, 

Proclaim the struggle nigh." 

O radiant-browed, the latest born of Time ! 

How waned thy sisters old, 
Before the splendors of thine eye sublime, 

And mien erect and bold ! 
Free, as the winds of thine own forests are, 

Thy brow beamed lofty cheer, 
And Day's bright oriflamme, the Morning Star, 

Flashed on thy lifted spear. 

" I bear no weight " — rang thine exulting tones — 

" Of memories weird and vast ; 
No crushing heritage of iron thrones, 

Bequeathed by some dead Past ; 
But hopes, that give my children power to climb 

Above the old-world fears — 
Whose prophecies forerun the latest time, 

And lead the crowning years ! 



217 

" Like spectral lamps, that burn before a tomb 

The ancient lights expire ; 
I hold a torch, that floods the fading gloom 

With everlasting fire : 
Crowned with my constellated stars, I stand 

Beside the foaming sea, 
And from the Future, with a victor's hand 

Claim empire for the Free ! " 
January, 1848. 



218 






THE MOUNTAINS. 

O deep, exulting freedom of the hills ! 

O summits vast, that to the climbing view 

In naked glory stand against the blue ! 
O cold and buoyant air, whose crystal fills 
Heaven's amethystine bowl ! O speeding streams, 

That foam and thunder from the cliffs below ! 

O slippery brinks and solitudes of snow, 
And granite bleakness, where the vulture screams ! 

stormy pines, that wrestle with the breath 
Of every tempest, sharp and icy horns, 
And hoary glaciers, sparkling in the morns, 

And broad, dim wonders of the world beneath ! 

1 summon ye, and 'mid the glare which fills 
The noisy mart, my spirit walks the hills. 



219 



LIFE. 

Life ! O Life ! art thou a mocking cheat, 
That, with thy flush and fervor in my blood, 
Teachest my heart a high, heroic mood, 

And passion-joy in all things fair and fleet ? 

1 know the trumpet winds will join no more 

With the high stars and billowed sea, to lift 
My spirit to the bard's immortal gift — 
That when a few warm summers shall be o'er, 
And thy last vintage pours its scanty wine, 
All these quick flames, will die in ashes low, 
The sluggish pulse forget its leaping flow, 
And faded lie the flowers of Love divine : 
When these, thy bounties, fail to warm my breath, 
Leave me, false Life, and send thy brother, Death ! 



220 



L'ENVOI. 

I've passed the grim and threatening warders 

That guard the vestibule of Song, 
And traced the print of bolder footsteps 

The lengthened corridors along ; 
Where every thought I strove to blazon 

Beside the bannered lays of old, 
Was dim below some bright escutcheon, 

Or shaded by some grander fold. 

I saw, in veiled and shadowy glimpses, 

The solemn halls expand afar, 
And through the twilight, half despairing, 

Looked trembling up to find a star ; 
Till, in the rush of wings, awakened 

My soul to utterance free and strong, 
And with impassioned exultation, 

I revelled in the rage of Song ! 



221 

Then, though the world beside, unheeding, 

Heard other voices than my own, 
Thou, thou didst mark the broken music, 

And cheer its proud, aspiring tone : 
Thou cam'st in many a lovely vision 

To lead my ardent spirit on, 
Thine eye my morning-star of promise, 

The sweet anticipant of dawn. 

And if I look to holier altars, 

Thou still art near me, as of old, 
And thou wilt give the living laurel, 

When the shrined Presence I behold. 
Take, then, these echoes of thy being, 

My lips have weakly striven to frame ; 
For when I speak what thou inspirest, 

I know my songs are nearest fame. 



LATER POEMS. 



(22J> 



225 



WIND AND SEA. 



The Sea is a jovial comrade, 

He laughs wherever he goes ; 
His merriment shines in the dimpling lines 

That wrinkle his hale repose ; 
He lays himself down at the feet of the Sun, 

And shakes all over with glee, 
And the broad-backed billows fall faint on the 
shore, 

In the mirth of the mighty Sea ! 



II. 



But the Wind is sad and restless, 
And cursed with an inward pain ; 
15 



226 

You may hark as you will, by valley or hill, 
But you hear him still complain. 

He wails on the barren mountains, 
And shrieks on the wintry sea ; 

He sobs in the cedar, and moans in the pine, 
And shudders all over the aspen tree. 



III. 



Welcome are both their voices, 

And I know not which is best — 
The laughter that slips from the Ocean's lips, 

Or the comfortless Wind's unrest. 
There's a pang in all rejoicing, 

A joy in the heart of pain, 
And the Wind that saddens, the Sea that glad- 
dens, 

Are singing the self-same strain ! 



227 



MY DEAD. 

Give back the soul of Youth once more ! 
The years are fleeting fast away, 
And this brown hair will soon be gray, 

These cheeks be pale and furrowed o'er. 

Ah, no ! the child is long since dead, 

Whose light feet spurred the laggard years, 
Who breathed in future atmospheres, 

Ere Youth's eternal Present fled. 

Dead lies the boy, whose timid eye 

Shunned every face that spake not love ; 
Whose simple vision looked above, 

And saw a glory in the sky. 



228 

And now the youth has sighed his last ; 
I see him cold upon his bier, 
But in these eyes there is no tear : 

He joins his brethren of the Past. 

'Twas time he died : the gates of Art 
Had shut him from the temple's shrine, 
And now I climb her mount divine, 

But with the sinews, not the heart. 

How many more, Life ! shall I 

In future offer up to thee ? 

And shall they perish utterly, 
Upon whose graves I clomb so high ? 

Say, shall I not at last attain 

Some height, from whence the Past is clear, 

In whose immortal atmosphere 
I shall behold my Dead again ? 



229 



THE LOST CROWN. 

You ask me why I sometimes drop 
The threads of talk I weave with you, 

And midway in expression stop 
As if a sudden trumpet blew. 

It is because a trumpet blows 

From steeps your feet will never climb 
It calls my soul from present woes 

To rule some buried realm of Time. 

Wide open swing the guarded gates, 
That shut from you the vales of dawn • 

And there my car of triumph waits, 
By white, immortal horses drawn. 



230 

A throne of gold the wheels uphold, 
Each spoke a ray of jewelled fire : 

The crimson banners float unrolled, 
Or falter when the winds expire. 

Lo ! where the valley's bed expands, 
Through cloudy censer-smoke, upcurled 

The avenue to distant lands — 
The single landscape of a world ! 

I mount the throne ; I seize the rein ; 

Between the shouting throngs I go, 
The millions crowding hill and plain, 

And now a thousand trumpets blow ! 

The armies of the world are there, 
The pomp, the beauty, and the power, 

Far-shining through the dazzled air, 
To crown the triumph of the hour. 

Enthroned aloft, I seem to float 

On wide, victorious wings upborne, 

Past the rich vale's expanding throat, 
To where the palace burns with morn. 



231 

My limbs dilate, my breast expands, 

A starry fire is in mine eye ; 
I ride above the subject lands, 

A god beneath the hollow sky. 

Peal out, ye clarions ! shout, ye throngs, 
Beneath your banners' reeling folds ! 

This pageantry to me belongs — 
My hand its proper sceptre holds. 

Surge on, in still augmenting lines, 
Till the great plain be overrun, 

And my procession far outshines 
The bended pathway of the sun ! 

But when my triumph overtops 

This language, which from vassals grew, 
The crown from off my forehead drops, 

And I again am serf with you. 



232 



STUDIES FOR PICTURES. 



AT HOME. 

The rain is sobbing on the wold ; 
The house is dark, the hearth is cold ; 
And stretching drear and ashy gray- 
Beyond the cedars, lies the bay. 

The winds are moaning, as they pass 
Through tangled knots of autumn grass > 
A weary, dreary sound of woe, 
As if all joy were dead below. 

I sit alone, I wait in vain 
Some voice to lull this nameless pain ; 
But from rny neighbor's cottage near 
Come sounds of happy household cheer. 






233 

My neighbor at his window stands, 
His youngest baby in his hands ; 
The others seek his tender kiss, 
And one sweet woman crowns his bliss. 



I look upon the rainy wild : 
I have no wife, I have no child : 
There is no fire upon my hearth, 
And none to love me on the earth. 



II 



THE NEIGHBOR. 

How cool and wet the lowlands lie 
Beneath the cloaked and hooded sky ! 
How softly beats the welcome rain 
Against the plashy window-pane ! 

There is no sail upon the bay : 

We cannot go abroad to-day, 

But, darlings, come and take my hand, 

And hear a tale of Fairy-land. 



234 

The baby's little head shall rest 
In quiet on his father's breast, 
And mother, if he chance to stir, 
Shall sing him songs once sung to her. 

Ah, little ones, ye do not fret, 
Because the garden grass is wet ; 
Ye love the rains, whene'er they come, 
That all day keep your father home. 

No fish to-day the net shall yield ; 
The happy oxen graze afield ; 
The thirsty corn will drink its fill, 
And louder sing the woodland rill. 

Then, darlings, nestle round the hearth ; 
Ye are the sunshine of the earth : 
Your tender eyes so fondly shine, 
They bring a welcome rain to mine. 



235 



III. 



UNDER THE STARS. 



How the hot revel's fever dies, 

Beneath the stillness of the skies ! 

How suddenly the whirl and glare 

Shoot far away, and this cold air 

Its icy beverage brings, to chase 

The burning wine-flush from my face ! 

The window's gleam still faintly falls, 

And music sounds at intervals, 

Jarring the pulses of the night 

With whispers of profane delight ; 

But on the midnight's awful strand, 

Like some wrecked swimmer flung to land, 

I lie, and hear those breakers roar : 

And smile — they cannot harm me more ! 

Keep, keep your lamps ; they do not mar 

The silver of a single star. 

The painted roses you display 

Drop from your cheeks, and fade away; 



236 

The snowy warmth you bid me see 
Is hollowness and mockery ; 
The words that make your sin so fair 
Grow silent in this vestal air ; 
The loosened madness of your hair, 
That wrapped me in its snaky coils, 
No more shall mesh me in your toils ; 
Your very kisses on my brow 
Burn like the lips of devils now. 
O sacred night ! O virgin calm ! 
Teach me the immemorial psalm 
Of your eternal watch sublime 
Above the grovelling lusts of Time ! 
Within, the orgie shouts and reels ; 
Without, the planets 1 golden wheels 
Spin, circling through the utmost space 
Within, each flushed and reckless face 
Is masked to cheat a haunting care ; 
Without the silence and the prayer. 
Within, the beast of flesh controls ; 
Without, the God that speaks in souls 



237 



IV 



IN THE MORNING. 



The lamps were thick ; the air was hot ; 

The heavy curtains hushed the room ; 
The sultry midnight seemed to blot 

All life but ours in vacant gloom. 

You spoke : my blood in every vein 
Throbbed, as by sudden fever stirred, 

And some strange whirling in my brain 
Subdued my judgment, as I heard. 

Ah, yes ! when men are dead asleep, 
When all the tongues of Day are still, 

The heart must sometimes fail to keep 
Its natural poise 'twixt good and ill. 

You knew too well its blind desires, 
Its savage instincts, scarce confessed ; 

I could not see you touch the wires, 
But felt your lightning in my breast. 



23S 



For you, Life's web displayed its flaws, 
The wrong which Time transforms to right 

The iron mesh of social laws 
Was but a cobweb in your sight. 

You showed that tempting freedom, where 
The passions bear their perfect fruit, 

The cheats of conscience cannot scare, 
And Self is monarch absolute. 

And something in me seemed to rise, 
And trample old obedience down : 

The serf sprang up, with furious eyes, 
And clutched at the imperial crown. 

That fierce rebellion overbore 
The arbiter that watched within, 

Till Sin so changed an aspect wore, 
It was no longer that of Sin. 

You gloried in the fevered flush 
That spread, defiant, o'er my face, 

Nor thought how soon this morning's blush 
Would chronicle the night's disgrace. 



239 

I wash my eyes ; I bathe my brow ; 

I see the sun on hill and plain : 
The old allegiance claims me now, 

The old content returns again. 

Ah, seek to stop the sober glow 

And healthy airs that come with day, 

For when the cocks at dawning crow, 
Your evil spirits flee away. 



240 



SUNKEN TREASURES. 

When the uneasy waves of life subside, 
And the soothed ocean sleeps in glassy rest, 

I see, submerged beyond or storm or tide, 
The treasures gathered in its greedy breast. 

There still they shine, through the translucent Past, 

Far down on that forever quiet floor ; 
No fierce upheaval of the deep shall cast 

Them back — no wave shall wash them to the 
shore. 

I see them gleaming, beautiful as when 

Ere while they floated, convoys of my fate ; 

The barks of lovely women, noble men, 

Full-sailed with hope, and stored with Love's own 
freight. 



241 

The sunken ventures of my heart as well, 
Look up to me, as perfect as at dawn ; 

My golden palace heaves beneath the swell 
To meet my touch, and is again withdrawn. 

There sleep the early triumphs, cheaply won, 
That led Ambition to his utmost verge, 

And still his visions, like a drowning sun, 

Send up receding splendors through the surge. 

There wait the recognitions, the quick ties, 

Whence the heart knows its kin, wherever cast ; 

And there the partings, when the wistful eyes 
Caress each other as they look their last. 

There lie the summer eves, delicious eves, 

The soft green valleys drenched with light divine, 

The lisping murmurs of the chestnut leaves, 

The hand that lay, the eyes that looked in mine. 

There lives the hour of fear and rapture yet, 
The perilled climax of the passionate years ; 

There still the rains of wan December wet 
A naked mound — I cannot see for tears ! 
16 



242 



There are they all : they do not fade or waste, 
Lapped in the arms of the embalming brine ; 

More fair than when their beings mine embraced — 
Of nobler aspect, beauty more divine. 

I see them all, but stretch my hands in vain ; 

No deep-sea plummet reaches where they rest ; 
No cunning diver shall descend the main, 

And bring a single jewel from its breast. 






243 



A FANTASY. 

Maiden of the Forest, 
Why play so loud and long ? 

Now let thy horn be silent, 
Thy voice take up the song ! 

1 cannot choose but listen, 

I cannot choose but follow, 
Where'er thy blue eyes glisten 
Across the woodlands hollow. 

My heart is filled with brightness 
As the heavens are filled with morn, 

To hear the sounds enchanted 
Leap from thy silver horn. 



214 

Let the echoes rest a moment, 

And let thy lips declare 
If thou be of earth or ocean, 

Or the flying shapes of air. 

Let my mouth be free to kiss thee, 
Let my hands be free to hold, 

For I cannot choose but love thee, 
And love is ever bold. 

Still she played, and playing, fleeted 

Before me as I sought her, 
And the horn rang out this answer 

Across the shaded water : 

1 play the strains enchanted 
You cannot choose but hear, 

For your life is in the music, 
And your heart sits at your ear. 

I shall never cease my playing 

For your love's impassioned prayer ; 

I shall never feci your kisses 
Falling on my golden hair. 



245 

For my touch would chill your pulses, 
And my kiss make dim your eye, 

And the horn will first be silent 
In the hour that you shall die. 



216 



THE VOYAGERS. 

No longer spread the sail ! 

No longer strain the oar ! 
For never yet has blown the gale 

Will bring us nearer shore. 

The swaying keel slides on, 

The helm obeys the hand ; 
Fast we have sailed from dawn to dawn, 

Yet never reach the land. 

Each morn we see its peaks, 

Made beautiful with snow ; 
Each eve its vales and winding crmjks, 

That sleep in mist below. 



247 

At noon we mark the gleam 

Of temples tall and fair ; 
At midnight watch its bonfires stream 

In the auroral air. 

And still the keel is swift, 

And still the wind is free, 
And still as far its mountains lift 

Beyond the enchanted sea. 

Yet vain is all return, 

Though false the goal before ; 
The gale is ever dead astern, 

The current sets to shore. 

O shipmates, leave the ropes — - 
And what though no one steers^ 

We sail no faster for our hopes, 
No slower for our fears. 

Howe'er the bark is blown, 
Lie down and sleep awhile : 

What profits toil, when ehance alone 
Can bring us to the isle ? 



248 



MEMORY. 

O give me the tongue of the silver sea, 
Or the flute of the twilight wind, 
For a tenderer music my heart would find, 

To sing of the sadness and sweetness of Memory ! 

Joy is a goblet that soon is drained ; 

It cracks in our heedless hands ; 

But the cup of Remembrance forever stands, 
Filled with libations the wormwood of tears has stained. 

We lift it against the dying sun ; 

We drink till the eyes run o'er; 

Wc drink till the heart will contain no more, 
And surfeited turns from the Lethe it has not won. 



249 



For all can look around and before, 

But few can steadily turn 

Where the unextinguished beacons burn, 
Far back on the cliffs of the lost, unreachable shore. 

Few can sit at the board of the Past, 

The Barmecide feast of the soul, 

And catch and sing over its songs as they roll, 
For the heart-strings attuned to their burthen are 
broken at last. 



250 



THE MARINERS. 

They were born by the shore, by the shore, 

When the surf was loud and the sea-gull cried ; 

They were rocked to the rhythm of its roar, 
They were cradled in the arms of the tide. 

Sporting on the fenceless sand, 

Looking o'er the limitless blue, 
Half on the water and half on the land, 

Ruddily and lustily to manhood they grew. 

How should they follow where the plough 
Furrows at the heels of the lazy steers ? 

How should they stand with a sickly brow, 
Pent behind a counter, wasting golden years ? 



251 



They turned to the Earth, but she frowns on her child; 

They turned to the Sea, and he smiled as of old ; 
Sweeter was the peril of the breakers white and wild, 

Sweeter than the land with its bondage and gold ! 

Now they walk on the rolling deck, 

And they hang to the rocking shrouds, 
When the lee-shore looms with a vision of wreck, 

And the scud is flung to the stooping clouds. 

Shifting the changeless horizon ring, 

Which the lands and islands in turn look o'er, 

They traverse the zones with a veering wing, 
From shore to sea, and from sea to shore. 

They know the South and the North ; 

They know the East and the West ; 
Shuttles of fortune, flung back and forth 

In the web of motion, the woof of rest. 

They do not act with a studied grace, 

They do not speak in delicate phrase, 
But the candor of heaven is on their face, 

And the freedom of ocean in all their ways. 



252 

They cannot fathom the subtle cheats, 

The lying arts which the landsmen learn : 

Each looks in the eyes of the man he meets, 
And whoso trusts him, he trusts in turn, 

Say that they curse, if you will, 

That the tavern and harlot possess their gains : 
On the surface floats what they do of ill — 

At the bottom the manhood remains. 

When they slide from the gaugway-plank below, 
Deep as the plummeted shroud may drag, 

They hold it comfort enough, to know 

The corpse is wrapped in their country's flag. 

But whether they die on the sea or shore, 
And lie under water, or sand, or sod, 

Christ give them the rest that he keeps in store, 
And anchor their souls in the harbors of God ! 






MOTE. 

Mox-DA-MlN ; OR, THE KoMANCE OF MAIZE. — For the 

Indian legend embodied in this poem, the author is indebted 
to the very curious and valuable " Algic Researches" of Mr. 
Schoolcraft. He has added nothing to the simple and beauti- 
ful story of the Origin of Maize, as there related, — a story 
which charmed him the more, from its unexpected grace and 
symmetry, in the midst of so many grotesque and exaggerated 
forms of tradition. 

(253) 



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